Guest comment: “Brilliant trip. Really enjoyable with friendly and knowledgable staff and volunteers. Number 1 on the bucketlist done!” – Martin + Leanne
“Absolutely amazing trip! Great boat, staff, well run. Thanks so much for the life long memories!” – Summer
“Incredible experience. Great efforts in shark conservation!” – Akhila
23/01/2017
Location: Joubertsdam
Water Temperature: 14.8’C + 15.2’C
Depth: 11.0m + 12.1m
Visibility: 0 – 0.5m
Number of Sharks: 5 + 3
Conditions: Flat seas with a slight wind and clear skies.
Trip 1
A blanket of White covered the bay today as we headed out this morning with mist hiding the Islands and much of the coastline. The sharks appeared as the mist started to disappear with our first shark one of the largest sharks we are seeing in the area at the moment, a male close to the size of the cage, that is to say approximately 4.3m in length. This male made a surprise attempt at our seal decoy and then unfortunately did not visit us again. Not long after though a smaller male showed up, one we have been seeing infrequently around the boat over the last few weeks with some distinct white marks on the left side towards his caudal fin. This small male was joined by another similar in size with a hook seen in the left side of the jaw. There is no trace of the line still attached and we hope that this hook will soon rust out. These sharks disappeared as the next shark arrived, a large male just under 4.0m in length, this was “Sellendilloh” the current satellite tagged White shark in the bay. He was tagged in April 2012 in Gansbaai by American based research group Ocearch, who make the data accessable to the public on their tracking website which can be found here. The last shark to arrive was yet again a large male, just on 4.0m in length, it appears the males are dominating the bay right now, something possibly to do with the La Nina weather patterns presently seen, as the presence of male White sharks can be found to increase with cooler water temperatures. We also had a Short-tailed stingray gliding around the boat for the last cage, a nice chance for our guests to see another of our bays inhabitants.
Trip 2
The second trip of the day was off to a great start with a shark spotted only 10 minutes after the boat arrived back on anchor. This shark was estimated at approximately 3.0m in length and whilst this is quite a large fish by any standards the next one was a massive in comparison as a 4.2m male came cruising into view. This male spent a bit of time investigating around the boat, with curious attempts on the bait and decoy lines. One more shark was seen to finish off the afternoon and it was one of our smaller males currently in the bay, under 3.0m in length, we classify him as a juvenile and whilst he may be smaller than the other sharks around today he can be quite active with feisty movements around the boat.
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.
