During a slightly impulsive conversation, Alex, Kara, and I decided that we wanted to go shark diving. We decided to go big or go home, so we drove two hours south to Gansbaii, also known as the Great White Shark capital of the World. Right off the coast of Gansbaii is shark alley, which is frequently featured on Discovery Channel during Shark Week!
Upon arriving, we were given a light lunch and taken upstairs to watch a safety presentation. After watching the slightly daunting video, we put on our lifevests, and headed out to sea. We were lucky to meet two other American girls who were studying in Kwazulu-Natal. This was a great friendship to have because we all agreed to take photos of each other in the cages. After about a 15 minute boatride, we anchored up right in shark alley. We were told to put on our wetsuits and boots and get ready.
After suiting up and taking loads of pictures, it was time to go in. We were in the second group to go down. How the cage works is that it is anchored to the side of the boat. It is about ten feet deep with about three feet above water. There are multiple bars to stand on. Basically you stand with your head above water until a spotter sees a shark and yells "DOWN" which you immediately plunge yourself into the frigid water and look for the shark. We lined up to get in and received our second check to make sure all of our equipment was properly put on. When it was our turn, we slowly lowered ourselves into the water. It was absolutely freezing. Luckily for us, we went numb after about ten minutes so we could no longer tell how cold we were.
Unfortunately we only got to see once shark from quite a distance in the thirty minutes we were under. Unfortunately we got out, dried off, and ate some food. About half an hour later, we were approached by the director and he asked us if we wanted to go back in since there were two people who hadn't gotten to go yet. We quickly yelled yes, threw on our gear, and went in for round two. Luckily this time, the sharks were out to play. Every five seconds we were told to go under and we saw over 15 different sightings. The sharks were around 4.5m (nearly 15 feet) and were less than five feet from our cage. After about twenty minutes of nonstop shark activity, it was about time for us to get out.
(since our pictures didn't come out that great-- here are some from the photographer on the boat)
However, our last shark decided to leave us with quite an impression. We were all underwater when we saw this huge great white swimming right towards us. The thing that was weird was that he wasn't stopping. This shark decided that he didn't want to swim by, he wanted to get up close and personal. The shark ended up ramming his entire body into our cage and we all flew backwards. It may have been one of the coolest things I have gotten to experience so far.
After quickly getting everyone out, I could see the staff breathe a sigh of relief. We took off out wetsuits and headed back upstairs to get ready to head back. However, before heading back to shore, we got to drive through shark alley. What makes shark alley so unique is that it literally is an alley between two islands, one of which is home to over 6,000 cape fur seals.
I can say without question that shark diving was one of the coolest things I have done abroad!
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