The Great White
About 8km off the coast at Gansbaai are 2 islands – Dyer island, home to a breeding colony of Jackass Penguins, and Geyser Island which is a breeding ground for the Cape Fur Seal.
Now, when you consider that the Great White’s favourite snack is seal, it doesn’t take an Einstein to figure out why the shallow channel between the islands – called Shark Alley – is home to the densest known population of Great White Sharks in the world. Another local nickname is “MacDonalds drive-thru for sharks”.
Go ahead and do it – Take the Great White trip from Cape Town!
Dyer Island is a nature reserve and cannot be accessed by the general public, but tourists can go aboard one of the boats of the shark dive operators. They depart from Kleinbaai (just outside Gansbaai) on Danger Point Peninsula.
Give someone the gift of a Great White shark cage diving experience.
You can watch the sharks from the boat, but the truly adventurous elect to be placed inside a steel cage and get lowered into the water beside the boat. Actually, it’s quite safe, but it’s one helluva adrenaline rush!
When to go shark cage diving or viewing
Most of the shark viewing and cage diving operations take place during the winter months (April to October), in and around Shark Alley. During summer (November to March) the location shifts closer to the beach, where it appears that sharks go to mate and give birth. This time is regarded as the low-season, as great white sharks are clearly less interested in feeding and are seldom are as numerous and active as during winter. This is also the time when the seals breed, so there are plenty of drowned pups around, making it less easy to lure the Great Whites to the boats.
Operators provide all the required diving equipment including wetsuits. It’s best to bring along warm clothes, bathing costumes, a hat and sunscreen, plus photographic equipment. Pack these in a small, easily manageable bag. If you are prone to seasickness, take a motion-sickness tablet at least an hour before departure.
This a strictly regulated industry, with only a few operators having been granted a license to engage in this activity. The trip to the diving grounds at Dyer Island is only six nautical miles from the launch site at Kleinbaai (just outside Gansbaai), and the journey takes 15-20 minutes. Once the site has been reached the vessels are anchored for 4-5 hours.
Being a surface feeder, Great White Shark activity takes place on or very close to the surface, so watching them from a boat is the way to go – let alone slipping into a cage for an even better view.
Attracting the Great White
The process of attracting the Great Whites to a vessel and its cage begins with “chumming”. This is the creation of a chum slick or odour corridor aimed at guiding the sharks to the boat. Chum consists of minced tuna meat, mashed sardines and fish oil which is mixed with sea water in a drum aboard the boat. It’s a potent smelling mixture which is then ladled back into the sea to create a chum slick which drifts slowly away from the boat. Then, pieces of fish are attached to a float and a rope and pulled away from the sharks. The South African cage-diving industry is not allowed by law to feed the sharks, and although the intention is to use the bait solely as a lure, it does get taken on occasion.
This method of chumming followed by a lure exploits the Great White’s extremely acute sense of smell which enables it to detect small concentrations of blood and then home in on the source by turning into the current. The shark will constantly swim and criss cross the odour corridor till it finds the bait.
With a little patience, the chances of a Great White approaching the boat are high, providing a unique viewing experience for those aboard.
The dive
Just as soon as there are fairly active sharks in the area, the cage is lowered into the water. The diving cages are designed to float and are made of a sturdy galvanized steel mesh protruding above the water’s surface to allow the divers to come up at any time. A lid prevents sharks from slipping in at the top and the use of surface air supply or SCUBA is optional.
The cage floats on the surface and is moored right next to the boat, so the diving is quite safe. No diving experience is required, and air is pumped in from the boat, enabling those in the cage to breathe from an extended hose. Divers are never more than 1 metre below the surface. The dive length depends on the level of shark activity as well as the temperature of the water. Weather permitting, everyone on board is given a chance to go into the cage. Visibility is between 4m to 6m on average, but may exceed 15m on a clear day.
When feeding actively around the boat, the sharks may occasionally brush their tail against the cage, but they will not attack the cage. Being curious, they will often come right up to the cage to take look at the diver. Talk about being eyeballed! It’s a wonderful experience where can not only watch these magnificent creatures, but observe them in hunting mode.
Is it a good thing?
Shark viewing has become a booming industry, and along with it has come inevitable controversy. Most of this is caused by the practice of chumming, the throwing of bait into the water by the shark boat crews to attract the Great Whites. There is the fear that these practices cause the sharks to become more accustomed to people in their environment – and especially to associate human activity with food.
The shark viewing operators feel this viewpoint is unfair, and that the matter warrants a great deal more research in order to determine whether the sharks’ behaviour is indeed altered in any way.
On the positive side there is no doubt that shark viewing has contributed greatly to the conservation of these creatures. There is far more money to be made from an alive shark than a dead one
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