Daily Blog 3 June 2016 (Trip 1+2) | Great White Shark Cage Diving Gansbaai

Guest comment: “Loved every second. Fantastic! Loved it all, staff are fab.” – Connor & Sarah

“Sharks on the one side, explaining on the other, awesome!” – Leo & Carol

“Great experience.” – Sophie

03/06/2016

Location: Geldsteen
Water Temperature: 16°C + 16.4’C
Depth: 12.2m + 11.9m
Visibility: 3-4 m + 5.0m
Number of Sharks: 9 + 7
Conditions: Partly cloudy, light drizzle in the morning, breeze from the south

The morning started off with a light drizzle, but that didn’t affect our shark sightings at all. We dropped the anchor at our winter dive-site the ‘Geldsteen’. After getting everything ready for the cage diving we were lucky and three sharks arrived. During the trip we had sharks around the whole time, slowly passing in front of the cage, so the diver could have a nice look at these graceful creatures. In total we encountered nine different individuals, the biggest was just under four meter. We spotted also a well-known shark, ‘Tom K’, which was displaying active behaviour around the vessel.

This second trip of the day launched to much improved conditions from this morning with the rain and clouds clearing. We headed back to the Geldsteen and had the area to ourselves as all the other boats had finished for the day. Not too long after arriving we had our first shark around and the activity continued throughout the trip. We had two males, both approximately 3.0m in length, that we have become quite aquainted with, “PJ” and also “Tom K” who also visited us this morning. It was not only the males that had all the fun today with a large female we have known for many years now coming by for for a few passes and easily identifiable by the large notch in her dorsal fin and old bite scar and the left side of her trunk. However the star of the show was a little juvenile White shark, one we are not familiar with, that has lost half of its’ right pectoral fin, and also has a hook and line trailing from the left side of its’ mouth. This was a perfect reminder for our guests of the trouble these animals can get into and the importance of properly disgarding unused fishing gear. Just like yesterday we had a Southen Giant Petrel visit the boat, landing in the danger zone that is the chum slick (quite possibly the same one) however unlike yesterday this bird unfortantely did not just receive a curious bump from a shark this one was on the end of a investigatory bite. The shark left the bird alone after and we were able to pick it up and once back on land it was taken to our African Penguin and Seabird Sanctuary here in Kleinbaai for treatment and hopefully a release soon after.


 

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.

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