Daily Blog 13 August 2016 (Trip 1 + 2) | Shark Diving South Africa

Guest comment: “Brilliantly organised and very well run crew. All very helpful and enthusiatic – made the experience amazing!” – Marina

“Seriously awesome! Even while sick, I learnt just how graceful they are, changed my view on them. Loved it!” – Avery

“A once in a lifetime experience that will never be forgotten!” – Lexi + Donald

13/08/2016

Location: Joubertsdam
Water Temperature: 15.0’C + 15.0’C
Depth: 10.2m + 11.8m
Visibility: 1.0m + 1.0m
Number of Sharks: 4 + 5
Conditions: Calm morning with increasing wind and swell as the day progressed.

Trip 1
Wakey wakey shark cage divers, it was an early start to this morning’s day of trying to catch a glimpse of the curious yet cautious Great White shark. We headed out with the sun rising and we were on anchor by 8am and by 8:05am we had our first show up, quite a surprise after the slower activity we have been experiencing lately. This first shark was a female approximately 3.0m in length and one we know as “Mandy”, who is easily recognisable by the dark scar just behind her dorsal fin. She came in fast and feisty for the first cage and then unfortunately left us only coming back every once in a while. However we were graced with the presence of our second shark not too long after, with a very small juvenile gliding in, one that has been seen recently and one that has three fresh wounds on the left side towards the end of it’s trunk. This little shark has since been adopted by a family from the USA and has been affectionately named “Chewy”, we hope to be able to monitor this juvenile White shark and report on it’s healing progress. Once the second cage had its turn things became eerily quite with the arrival of a Short-tailed stingray and whilst this causes a lot of interest amongst our visitors these stingrays do have the ability to chase the sharks away. The rest of the trip was on the slow side with two other juvenile White sharks showing up and also a large shadow crusing by off the back of the boat and heading further in the Shallows where it disappeared and was not seen again.

Trip 2
The second trip of the day launched with the similar lovely conditions, however the weather started to change during this trip with the wind and swell picking up and making conditions choppy. We still had luck with shark sightings with a number of sharks showing up for the afternoon. This included some new arrivals for the day such as another of our newly adopted sharks, a small female that has become a favourite around the boat over the last 3-4 weeks and has now been named “3bird” a mixture of the adopters surnames! We were also lucky enough to get a closer look at the large shark that cruised by in the distance on the first trip as she snuck up and hit the decoy and then glided by the cage and disappeared yet again, we truly hope to see this shark again and get a identification on the estimated 4.0m animal.

A beautiful Saturday spent out on the water with some nice sightings of the magnificent creatures that we are so lucky to see.


If you are looking to get up close and personal with the great white shark then Shark Diving in South Africa, 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.

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