Guest comments: “We had an awesome time! Saw some great sharks, learned some interesting facts, and met some great people. Thank you!” – Stacie + Kyle
“30th birthday gift didn’t disappoint! I’m one very happy boy!” – Colm + Becca
“Very well run by a friendly and knowledgeable team!” – Alex
27/04/2018
Location: Joubertsdam
Water Temperature: 16.5’C + 16.5’C + 16.7’C
Depth: 10 m + 10 m + 9.5 m
Visibility: 2 m + 2 m + 1.5 m
White Sharks Seen: 5 + 3 + 4
Conditions: A beautiful morning with the seas getting choppy as the wind picked up in the afternoon.
Wakey wakey shark cage divers! It’s an early start, but the sharks are awake! We headed out into the early morning, leen to get up close and personal with some white sharks. As the sun rose over the mountains we geared up and got our cage in the water, an absolutely stunning way to start the day. And it wasn’t long until a white shark crept out of the depths to come and show us what she’s all about. This turned out to be Clampy, gliding around the cage and checking out what all the fuss was about. With some very happy people on board, we got our divers in the cage and in the water with these magnificent animals! We had a steady progression of five different sharks on this trip as well as a quick encounter with a copper shark and a stingray that hung around pretty much the entire trip! The stand out sharks on this trip included sighting a very small and feisty white shark just under 2m in length, as well as a slightly bigger 2.5m female. These little sharks proved that size doesn’t always matter as they were very inquisitive around Slashfin.
For the second trip we reloaded back in Kleinbaai harbour and made a beeline back to the cage, after quickly re-anchoring we got our divers in the cage with the 2.5m female again very very interested in what was going on in the water. After a bit of a ait we were joined again by the small 1.8m shark, who demonstrated that even sharks of this size have supreme speed and agility! The finals shark on this trip was a 3m shark just cruising around and investigating the decoy!
Our third trip of the day launched into a light breeze with the sun occasionally hiding behind the clouds. The cage hadn’t even been secured to the side of the boat when we had our first shark approach. It was the baby shark that we saw the other day, with a small bite mark on its right side. This is the smallest shark we’ve seen recently, at approximately 1.3 meters long. While it might be small, it is extremely curious and comes off as playful like a puppy, constantly trying to chew on the seal decoy. It stuck with us throughout the trip, only leaving when the larger sharks were around. We had 3 others sharks, all over 3 meters long. One is a 3.4 meter male that has 2 large black scars on its right side. He was quite sneaky, often coming up from below, doing his best to hide from our bait handler. After a few failed attempts, he swam off, perhaps to plot a better attack plan. The next shark was about 3.2 meters long with a long black scar along its left side. It stuck around for a bit but then disappeared when a shark we recognize appeared. It was the 3.8 meter male with the bite mark on his left gill slits. He was up to his usual behaviour, eyeing the decoy from below then sneaking up on us, lunging out of the water with Sally the seal decoy firmly between his teeth. At one point, he had just left Sally and was swimming towards the front of the boat when the sneaky male from earlier lunged out of the water with Sally between his teeth! Poor Sally, attacked by 2 sharks within 20 seconds! Our trip ended with our baby shark and the sneaky male doing a few beautiful passes for our final group of cage divers. When they disappeared, everyone bundled up and we headed back to shore to warm up with some nice hot vegetable soup and homemade bread rolls; a warm welcome after a chilly afternoon!
Thank you to all our shark cage divers for joining us! Happy birthday Colm! We hope it was a fin-tastic day for all!
If you are looking to get up close and personal with the great white shark then Shark 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.
