Guest comment: “Fabulous, a little bumpy but fabulous! Thank team, one more bucket list item ticked off!” – Donna
“Amazing – had a great time watching the sharks from in and out of the water, with the bonus of whales!” – Edwina + Matt
“Great experience, staff were very helpful and nice. Enjoyed it, thanks!” – Mary + Dino
10/08/2016
Location: Joubertsdam
Water Temperature: 17.3’C + 17.5’C
Depth: 10.1m + 10.4m
Visibility: 2.0m + 2.0m
Number of Sharks: 3 + 4
Conditions: Clear skies with little swell but with increasing west winds causing choppy conditions.
Trip 1
A beautiful start to a Monday morning with flat, calm seas and clear blue skies as the first trip of the week headed out early in the morning to make the most of this glorious day. The shark action started only 30 minutes after arrival with a juvenile White shark making its presence known. Not long after the first small shark turned up a larger female came gliding in, this was “Scarlett”, a White shark estimated at 4.0m in length, easily identified due to the amount of scars cover her. These scars include many healed bite marks around her head, jaws and gills as well as missing the tip of her caudal fin. She is an amazing shark to watch around the boat as she makes slow, determined passes and is known for breaking the water’s surface with her snout. The sharks then became very shy and the activity slowed down with the arrival of a Short-tailed stingray, which is always interesting to see around the boat but can sometimes spook our sharks a little however whilst the activity was still slow for the rest of the trip one more White shark turned up, a very large, darkly coloured female.
Trip 2
The second trip of the day headed out of the harbour with a change in the conditions as the west wind increased causing chop on the water. On the way out we were lucky enough to spot a Southern Right whale cow and calf pair enjoying the choppy water in the distance, as we do not want to disturb these two we continued on to our anchor site but had a nice view of the calf tail slapping. On to the main event of the day, shark cage diving! We had a 30 minute wait for the sharks to be seen, when out of know where an estimated 3.0m female White shark surprised us, and our divers quickly got into the cage. This shark stuck around for a little while before a smaller shark appeared and made some fantastic passes before it too disappeared, then towards the end of this cage one of our acoustically tagged sharks turned up, a feisty male just over 3.0m in length . Once our second cage was in it was like all the sharks completely left the area and we unfortunately had no sightings, our third cage of divers gave it a go and after 20 minutes the sharks came back at full force with one of our acoustically tagged females joining us for the rest of the trip allowing those divers and others another chance of viewing these amazing animals.
If you are looking to get up close and personal with the great white shark then Great White Shark Cage Diving in Gansbaai, and more specifically with Marine Dynamics, is a once-in-a-lifetime experience you won’t want to miss. Book and pay online with us and get a free video of your encounter with the world’s apex predator.
