Great White Shark Diving in Gansbaai

I have never been a big fan of the ocean. I appreciate it, but I just don't feel very well equipped when I'm in it! A 'visitor' to a vast watery world where everything below me is designed to be there, and I'm not. As a child I hated going to the Cape Town Museum where a 'highlight' of the tour would be to sit and stare at whale skeletons while we'd listen to their sounds. What an eerie experience. I couldn't watch Free Willy for years.

So it is with some trepidation that I went to Gansbaai to embark on a shark cage diving trip. To be honest if the shark cage diving company had told us we couldn't go because they had lost their boat or had their cages stolen, I wouldn't have been too upset. But alas, they did have cages and the boat was fully functioning and ready to go.

I was comforted to find out that in the history of shark cage diving, a shark had never broken through a cage. However, in the history of athletics nobody had ever run the 4-minute-mile before Roger Bannister. What if I got a shark that was an over-achieving 'Bannister' Shark?

We got out to somewhere in the bay where their was a flurry of activity - the dive master started chumming the water with tuna chunks and then lowered the cage into the ocean. I looked around the boat and seeing that it was half-filled with women and children, I decided that I had to put my 'man' face on. The first round of divers were called forward. I stood up, made my way to the edge of the cage, took my last look around the boat, said a quick prayer, and jumped into the icy Gansbaai water.

After a quick acclimatization I went under to look at my first live Great White Shark. I was surprised by my reaction, I wasn't nervous, I wasn't having Free Willy flashbacks, I was just in awe of this beautiful and graceful beast. The visibility in winter is surprisingly good and I could see the sharks quite clearly. As they swum around us it was clear that this was their domain, but it wasn't scary. It was interesting and humbling to watch the Great White Shark up close with my own eyes.

I watched a shark for some time as it passed us and went below the cage - eventually the burn in my lungs from a lack of oxygen forced me to the surface. As soon as I had gathered enough air, I was back under again. As I submerged all I saw was a red mouth filled with bad dentistry, followed by flashbacks of skeletons in the Cape Town Museum. Turns out that a shark had gotten too close and thought he'd show me some aggression. I remembered what the instructor had said about the cage never being broken and quickly wondered if this was Roger Bannister in shark form. However, it was not, and I survived.

Getting back to land, we were all full of stories. Did you see the one with the scar? How close did that shark come to the cage? Who saw the baby shark? We were heroes of our own making, going to the shark's domain and surviving. I now recommend shark cage diving to anyone that is going near Gansbaai. Even if you can't swim, hate water, and are afraid of sharks - get in a cage, and be awed by these giants of the deep.

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