Great White Shark Cage Diving – The Adventure of a Lifetime! Part I…
Great White Shark
There is a Great White Shark (white shark) cage diving service in Mossel Bay (White Shark Africa) and BG let me sign up for it (she is a great and understanding wife!).Â
This service is the work of Theo Ferreira, a pre – eminent white shark expert and conservator. Theo is a “converted” shark hunter who led the successful crusade to ban Great White Shark hunting and wrote the book “Shark Man”.  Many National Geographic and BBC documentaries were filmed using Theo’s shark crews.
The crew provided excellent background knowledge on the white shark and the cage diving gave “hands on” experience (but you keep your hands in the cage!).Â
Great Whites are solitary creatures that roam thousands of miles. The sharks feed in the bay but they disappear for months then re – appear. They GPS tagged one Mossel Bay white shark and watched it travel to Australia and back in 99 days!
BG saw me off at the dock as we headed to Seal Island, a short 10 minutes away. We dropped anchor and watched the seals play in the surf and sun on the rocks.  The white sharks cruise around the island and prey on the seals. The seal mothers take their young to the beach across the channel and teach them how to swim and (try) to avoid white sharks.
Sometimes sharks come to the boat immediately and other times they take their time – and they did…We waited patiently as the crew threw foul smelling chum into the water. We put the bottom half of our wet suits on – very tight and uncomfortable contraptions but also very necessary for the 52 degrees fahrenheit winter waters (you would drown in less than an hour without it – the water literally takes your breath away).  This was the most difficult part of the journey (next to the shark cage) – the smell of the chum, heat from the wet suit, and rolling motion of the boat did not feel good at all.
We sat in misery for about 1 ½ hours when suddenly the crew shouted “shark!”. There it was – a “small” Great White Shark about as big as I am! It circled the boat, sized up the bait, and lunged after it – spectacular! After it ate it immediately left the area. The crew said they do this at times. Great White Sharks are truly wild creatures – they cannot be trained to take bait on command like seals, dolphins, etc. They cannot be kept in captivity, so cage diving is the only way to see them…
White sharks have very slow metabolisms that allow them to go for days without eating. They are hunters of opportunity and when they see prey their metabolisms go into overdrive. Our sharks were cruising around, got excited about the bait, but quickly went back into “cruise mode”.
Finally, after about another hour two sharks appeared and the crew shouted “get in the cage”. We quickly put the tops of our wet suits on and grabbed our goggles. Now we were really uncomfortable, but we were headed for the extremely cold waters…
Please go to Part II…
Before you do, what do you think? Click on the link above to leave your comments (“Great White Shark Cage Diving – The Adventures…”)
Raymond Pechacek lives in the U.S. and is married to a wonderful South African lady (BG!). He writes about the people, customs, wildlife, and places of South Africa, runs a consulting firm to help companies improve their global trade processes, and imports products into the U.S. - with an emphasis on supporting South Africa!
September 22, 2009
Posted in: Adventure!, Sharks!, Things You Must Do, Wildlife
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Great White Shark Cage Diving – The Adventure of a Lifetime! Part I… | Mossel Bay Travel - Culture and Recreation - September 23, 2009
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I’m glad you enjoyed your shark diving experience. I have heard mixed reviews about those. Some people love them and rave about it, while others did not think it was worth the money.. CNN had an article about the cage diving in Cape Town last week actually!
Thank you for your comment! I enjoyed reading your blog also and look forward to following it!