Daily Blog 26 December 2015 (Trip 1 + 2 + 3 + 4) | Cage Diving South Africa

Guest comment: “Staff was so friendly and it definately made this once in a life time experience even better!” – Cheryl + Paul

“Awesome job Marine Dynamics team. We had a lot of fun!” – Carmen + Cla

“Such an amazing experience! Thanks for everything, I can’t wait to come back!” – Andrew

26/12/2015

Location: Joubertsdam
Water Temperature: 19.7’C + 19.8’C + 20.0’C + 20.1’C
Depth: 10.0m + 10.4m + 9.0m + 11.2m
Visibility: 0.5m + 0.5m + 0.5m + 0.5m
Number of Sharks: 5 + 7 + 5 + 4
Conditions: South wind creating some chop but with little swell around.

No sleep-ins for the first group of shark cage divers this morning with an early exclusive launch for a family from the United States. It appeared that we were not the only ones around nice and early, with the sharks arriving very soon after anchor, including “Mandy” and “Pieter” the first two of the morning, a fintastic start to any shark cage divers day! This trip saw the size of the White sharks increase with each new addition until the last shark of the trip, a 4.2m female, came cruising by showing the smaller sharks who is boss! Due to the low tides at the end of this trip, Slashfin had to make it’s way around Danger Point and into Gansbaai harbour. Whilst this is a longer trip than heading back into our usual harbour, Kleinbaai, it is a beautiful ride along the coast and a great chance for people to learn a bit more about the wreakage of the British troop ship, the Birkenhead, which went down in 1852. The second trip of the day launched from Gansbaai and made its’ way back around the point and back into the Shallows. Not too long after re-anchoring our first shark made itself known, and wow what a great shark to start with. The stunning 4.2m female re-appeared and had a great presence around the boat as she slowly approached with her jaws opened! We also saw “Jacob” briefly on this trip and a number of others including a smaller male with a healed injury to it’s dorsal fin, similar to one of our well known White sharks, “Ingrid”, this male can be seen to have three sections to it’s dorsal fin. Whilst we have been able to monitored “Ingrid’s” recovery with each of her visits to the bay this male has appeared in the bay fully healed. The White sharks ability to bounce back from injuries is astonding as can be seen here in a past study done by Marine Dynamics and Dyer Island Conservation Trust. The third trip of the day was a successful trip for a family visiting from America. The trip started off well with a shark instantly around the boat. Many of the sharks seen on this trip swam on by however one visitor, “Pieter”, showed why he is one of the favourites of ours as he took some jaw-inspiring leaps out of the water. The fourth and final trip of the day saw a young family from Switzerland join us to see what all the fuss about White sharks is! Whilst we had a little wait for the sharks to show up this afternoon, they were well worth it with some fantastic activity seen from “Mandy”, “Pieter” and a very small juvenile. These three sharks were fast, stuck around and were happy to come nice and close to the cage, which helps on days like today when the visibility poses such a challenge! A fantastic day out on the water…

If you are looking to get up close and personal with the great white shark then Cage 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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