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Cage diving in South Africa |
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September 30 , 2006
Cape Town is a dream destination for sports and adventure lovers and those who love the outdoors. It is known to be a fabulous, diverse and vibrant city with something for everyone. What we have heard about South Africa—its beauty, natural attributes and friendly people are all true. We saw as many places as we could. It’s guaranteed that after you’re done reading about Sports Unlimited’s trip around Cape Town, you would want to go there and see it for yourself. The South African way of life revolves around their music, food and dancing. Here you can do a string of activities from cage diving with great white sharks or watching them offshore, tasting a variety of wines, rappelling down the world famous Table Mountain, going on a scenic mountain bike adventure, wheeling up and down on a high speed cable car to getting up close and personal with some of the fastest animals in the planet like cheetahs. The zebra, ostrich, antelope, springbuck and reindeer are also there in the wild for you to see. People here also like to shop at authentic South African “tiangges” and stroll down the Cape Town harbors. South Africa makes up a big portion of the continent of Africa. Cape Town, meanwhile, is a two-hour flight to Hong Kong and a 13-hour long haul to Johannesburg, South Africa’s capital. From Johannesburg, we took another two-hour flight to Cape Town. We were with a group of about 10 people who were also from the Philippines. Many of us were first-timers. We had a full schedule and we were determined to make the most of every minute spent in this Sports Unlimited dream destination. Our number one priority was to go cage diving with the famous great white sharks of South Africa.
Gansbaai is a small coastal village. There, you will see several operators who offer cage diving. The ones we went with had a very personal touch to their service. The home-cooked breakfast had everything we wanted since South Africans eat healthy. We would be out at sea for a couple of hours so the operators told us to store some energy. There were about 10 others from different countries who booked this adventure with us. The skipper came out when everyone was done eating and gave us a talk on what to expect when we go out on this adventure. We listened intensely to know exactly what we needed to do and bring. We weren’t really nervous, just truly eager and excited as we were about to do something people from all over the world come to Gansbaai for. The boat we had was not all that big. There was just enough space for the crew. There were about five guys with us--the skipper, the spotter, one to lower the cage, one to prepare the bait and one to prepare all the equipment we would need. It was a bumpy ride and the weather was overcast. The water looked very cold and we were told that sharks like that better. We sailed for about 15 minutes and then anchored in the area where the great white sharks dwell.
In a few minutes, we saw our first shark. We ran up the upper deck to get a good view when several other white sharks came. We all wowed at how strong they all seemed. Some stayed longer than the others. The operators said we should familiarize ourselves first on how sharks look and move before we could go cage diving. The cage was about 5-feet long and 3-feet wide. The adventure was really daring and thrilling because we were really close to the most advanced and fearsome predators in the world. The cage is connected to the side of the boat where four divers go in at a time. We were given 5-millimeter wetsuits, a hood, booties and a mask. Marc and I watched as the first four divers got in. If you followed the prompt of the spotter and stayed down, you would likely get a good view of the shark’s mouth and teeth that kept banging against the cage. We had a great number of sharks that came around on the feast hour. Everyone had an awesome time.
We were out at the sea for about five hours. So far, this group had a hundred percent safety record during the adventure. There were no accidents. The great thing about cage diving is everyone can do it whether on the boat or in the cage. One is just as thrilling as the other. What matters is to see the powerful great white sharks in a close range. Hot tea and dry clothes felt good as we went back to land. All our expectations were met. The in-house videographer did a great job capturing our experience on camera and we watched it as soon as we got back. We will all forever remember how close we got to the great white sharks. It was a full day. On the way back to our hotel, we stopped at a local store to see the unique things South Africa had to offer. We ended with a side trip to Victoria Wharf, Cape Town’s beautiful harbor. It is a must-see too. |
This is a Sports Unlimited special straight from South Africa. Welcome to Cape Town!
We got up very early for this adventure. Despite feeling sleepy in the van, we were all excited to go. It was a beautiful two-hour drive to the coastal town of Gansbaai where the densest population of white sharks can be found.
One of the crew started preparing for the bait then. White sharks are usually attracted to fish liver, which we had inside the plastic net bags and thrown over board for them. Some fish heads that were cut up in chunks were dropped in the water in a line to get the sharks as close as possible to the boat.
The bird flying on the top of the water sort of gave us an idea of where the sharks were coming from. There were also several other boats within a few hundred meters that were also looking out for the sharks. When it was our turn to go down, we stayed in a sitting position until the crew told us the next step. The water was freezing. When they started to shout “down,” we took a deep breath and went down to the bottom of cage and held on to a metal bar. Whenever we ran short of breath, we came up and waited for another shark before we went down again. I stayed in the cage for about 30 minutes only because it was freezing. It was worth it at the same time. Marc was in the cage for an hour.