South Africa Shark Cage Diving Review

Great White Shark Diving: Questions Dive company and performance The boat, the cage and timing Seasickness The shark experience Disappointments Tips for shark cage diving Dive Rating Contact John

Which dive company did you use?

For three days I went with The White Shark Diving Company (make an enquiry about a shark cage dive) at Gansbaai, and then one day with someone else at Gordon's Bay into False Bay.

And how did they perform, how was their service?

I thought it was brilliant.

[At Gansbaai, we saw] plenty of sharks every day and we had very informative staff on the boat.

How did you get to hear about White Shark Diving Company?

Basically I was searching on the internet for shark cage diving in South Africa and it came up with lots of different companies. And all I did was I e-mailed them my requirements of when I was going to come and number in the party, etc., and they sent me information back.

But one person who - well the guy I booked through was called Shark Bookings - and when I actually got to speak to him he said, "We're not a [shark cage diving] company as such, we just find the best boat or whatever you're looking for… we tailor-make what you require and find the actual boats."

So he actually sorted out all my travel arrangements to be honest. I booked my flights, but he sorted out my accommodation, my car hire and my shark diving, apart from the last place we went to which White Shark Diving Co sorted out for me.

Did White Shark Diving Co give you briefings before the dives?

Yes. You had to be at their premises by 08:30 - there was a breakfast laid out for you. People were travelling from Cape Town so we had to wait until everybody was there. And they were in radio contact with their buses or whatever.

Once they'd all turned up they gave a 10-minute briefing of how you sort of conduct yourself on the boat, what you could expect to see, general safety rules of the boat and what each person (in terms of crew) would be doing during the shark cage diving.

That was informative and I went to all three even though they said on the second or third day, "You've obviously heard it, you don't need to go through it again", I did and again at the place at Gordon's Bay - it was exactly the same.

That was land-based information. When you're on the shark cage diving boat they'd give you additional information about what would be happening and then while we were out there doing the actual shark cage diving, the crews on both boats would give you information about the sharks, seals, the area, time of year… just generally filling you out with information about what's happening there.

Did you get the idea that they were eco-friendly?

Yes. Even though there was a bit of interaction with the sharks ... I know they were luring the sharks in, but they weren't feeding them or anything like that. And I thought the way they conducted themselves, yes.

Do you have a scuba diving certificate?

I do, but you don't actually need it for shark cage diving because you don't use any diving equipment on the trips. The one's got a hand bar and at Gordon's Bay they give you a regulator from the boat. But I'm a trained diver anyway with the British Aqua Club.

Obviously I didn't know what to expect but basically [at Gansbaai] we had the smallest shark cage diving boat which turned out to be the better facility because you got longer in the cages. All the boats go out for the same amount of time - ours catered for 12 customers so if you're out there for 4 hours, you got longer in the cage or more opportunity to go in the cage.

It was slightly different when we went out from Gordon's Bay - the boat was smaller and I'm not sure what the limit on the boat was but we were only 7 paying customers in a smaller cage.

So in a lot of ways the shark cage diving experience for me was better out there purely because the water was clearer and the sharks seemed to be bigger and you were out a lot longer. We were out from about 6:30 in the morning till about 2 o'clock in the afternoon.

No. I don't usually suffer from sea sickness anyway. But I was with my daughter who's 10 and as a precaution I did give her sea sickness tablets. She didn't feel ill at all. There were people on the boat who didn't take any medication who did feel sick.

Was the sea a bit rough?

No, it was flat calm on all the trips I went on.

Most people would just go and do a one-day shark cage diving trip and then that's their experience. So with what they were saying is that they (White Shark Diving Co) couldn't guarantee that the boat could get out on a particular day because of the weather conditions. So I basically booked 3 days diving thinking that if I get one of the three, I may have done okay, but I managed to get on all three days and then did the additional one at False Bay because I wanted to see the sharks breaching.

Did you manage to see any sharks breaching at False Bay like you wanted?

Well, we didn't see it in terms of the actual predation. It was happening all around but obviously the first thing you sort of see is a big splash and then you see the actual shark pursuing the seal.

We never actually saw a seal get killed and we didn't particularly - I didn't want to even though I'm not squeamish in any way, I thought it would be more pleasurable to watch the chase rather than see the kill. Plus, I had my daughter on the boat - I don't think she was too pleased.

But then we threw a decoy off the back of the boat and we were just chugging around for about half an hour and then we had a shark breach on the decoy. That was well worthwhile.

Actually, that day I wasn't intending to go in the water, because I thought I've done the three days shark cage diving [in Gansbaai] … a lot of the viewing of the sharks is better from on the boat especially from above, on top of the cabins.

But when I saw the sharks in False Bay and saw how clear the water was, I thought to myself well I might not be here again so let's make the most of the opportunity.

The visibility of the water was unbelievable, so you're seeing sharks 10-15 metres away in the water, whereas at Gansbaai you were probably 4 metres and after that you were losing them in the sort of gloom.

So you'd recommend the Gordon's Bay one rather than the Gansbaai one?

Well, I spoke to somebody else that was on the boat and they went shark cage diving with a different operator at Gordon's Bay, they went out of Simon's Town. They said they were quite disappointed with what they saw and how long they went out compared to Gansbaai.

Because at Gansbaai basically within about half an hour of getting to the site we had sharks around the boat, and quite a few.

They were saying that when they went out at False Bay - they went with Chris Fallows - they said it wasn't very good on the boat, it wasn't a very big boat and they didn't see very much. I found it simply the opposite but I had a different skipper and we departed from a different place.

If I had to say which is the best out of them both for shark cage diving, it'd be a very fine line between the first day's trip at Gansbaai where we had one particular shark around the boat for 15 or 20 minutes, and the False Bay experience.

For me - [the latter] was a more natural environment to see them in, so you see them out hunting their prey (the seals) and then when they came around the cage, they didn't do much chumming. It literally was just the bait. The first bait line he threw in, he didn't even throw it in the water, a shark had snatched the tuna head completely off it, we didn't even see it. He just took it.

If I was going to go shark cage diving again, and I do intend to go again - possibly next year - I would think if I was going to do four days again I would do a split of two days at each place for the option of seeing what I saw this time.

So you say there wasn't much chumming of the water going on?

Not in False Bay, there wasn't as much as they did in Gansbaai. I think the reason for that is the number of boats is reduced in False Bay where there are only three shark cage diving operators who have license to operate.

At Gansbaai you've got eight boats. So the way the water was running or been blown on the surface... you've got eight boats throwing some chum in the water so obviously you're going to get a bigger spread.

At False Bay you're only one of three boats and they didn't do as much chumming at False Bay. You've got the sharks around you anyway.

Article: Does shark cage diving cause shark attacks?

How many sharks would you see on average when you went out?

I would say anywhere between eight and fifteen per trip.

Whether they were doing it for our benefit, or whether it was actual, the people on the boat would say, "That's the fourth different shark we've seen". We could also tell, because at one point we had four different sharks around the boat, so we knew we'd definitely seen four different sharks.

We did have a few that came which we saw again and again. You could tell sometimes from their size whether you've seen it before. Or markings on them … some had bite marks or spots on them so you knew you were seeing different sharks.

Were they all great whites, or other species as well?

All were great whites, we saw nothing else. In fact we didn't see many other fish there - you had some coming around feeding on the chum, but not much really.

Was the experience in the cage itself a bit scary?

No, not for me. To be perfectly honest, I've sort of got a fascination with it, so in a way I felt restricted with the cage but it wasn't - the cage is perfectly safe.

I'd be busy shark cage diving and on more than one occasion when the shark actually missed the bait or just basically bit the cage, and in no way did I feel that it's unsafe - never once.

They were telling you, "Don't put your hands out". I mean, you can't put any part of your body out the cage but at one point the shark got hold of the cage I was in - I was in on my own - its skin was pressed against the bars, so I got to touch it in that way.

At False Bay we were in a two-man round cage and the shark will come and grab the bait and then trying to bite the bait from the rope … he smashed into the cage. There where the wire of the viewing area was, they'd narrowed it by putting another steel ring around it, but as a temporary thing, and that got smashed off.

So where you had say two 8-inch gaps to view the sharks through, this opened to one 16 inch gap. He said to me at one point, when he had some camera crew on a shark cage diving trip, they had the camera pointing out and had the bait on the side of the boat and it literally swam round holding onto the bait and swum right through the gap that the cameraman were filming in and got stuck.

So he'd only put that band there as a precaution against that happening again but you never thought it was going to happen - I didn't think any way, that I was in any way in any danger.

My only disappointment, and it's not really a disappointment but maybe a slight criticism, was on the second day at Gansbaai. Basically we got to stay out longer on the first and third days because they were doing some blasting in the harbour, some dynamite to widen it, so we got to stay out an hour longer.

But on the middle day they said to us, "We've got to get back in because we've got a second trip in the afternoon" and the party that was coming form Cape Town turned up late so the paying customers were on the boat for a very short space of time, literally about 2½ hours between going out on the boat and the boat coming back.

I was trying to say to the people, "We went out yesterday and we were this long on the boat and we saw this" ... I mean the crew took us round to see the seals at Geyser Rock and then took us to see some whales that was in the area.

On the middle day you got none of that. So in a way, because you had something to compare it to from the day before and the day after, I thought you were a little bit short-changed for that middle trip.

I think there should maybe be a cut off point where if you're not there, the boat goes. But obviously they might lose income that way. Or, maybe guarantee a length of time to be out, so you might say, "The boat will definitely be out for 4 hours".

But that would be my only thing, and it's only a minor issue. I did three days shark cage diving with them so that short period didn't really bother me. And we still saw sharks - 8, 9 sharks - when that happened.

Possibly…

1. My little girl went, and they didn't have a wet suit to fit her on the boat. They found one that was very poorly fitting and to be honest probably her first experience in the cage was a little bit rushed. Partly because we sort of didn't know what was - you knew what was expected but she was sort of hurried into the cage, poorly fitting suit, relatively cold water but nothing you couldn't put up with, and she was out after 5 minutes. That was on the first day.

   The second day she says, "I'm not going in" but after being on the boat watching and observing the other people shark cage diving, when we got home she said, "I'd like to go in again tomorrow".

   So I bought her a 3mm wet suit while we were there just because to me, we've gone all that way for the experience and it seemed a shame to miss out.

   When she actually went in, in the wet suit we bought her, she spent half an hour in the cage swimming up and down - because it was big enough for her to swim in. And she had a great time; saw everything.

   So I'd say if you're an odd size - a bit small or whatever, it may be advisable to take your own suit.

2. If you're going to go shark cage diving at False Bay, you probably would need to have had a practice on a regulator before you went.

   I went to my local dive club, explained what I was doing and said, "If I need to come over for a couple of sessions in your pool, make a donation to the club or whatever, so that my little girl can have a go in 6 ft of water with a regulator just getting used to it…"

   I think that's a good idea that some people should do. They say if you don't have a scuba certificate you can't go in but to be honest you don't need anything because you're not going in the water as such, you're virtually on the surface. It's just a case of getting used to breathing through a regulator.

   So I think that would be a point of advice really.

What would you say the most important item in your luggage was?

1. A wet suit if you're not of a sort of average size. There were people on the boat, well there was a woman who my daughter was taller than, my daughter's probably 4 ft 10 (1.5m). The woman was a bit shorter than her, but a bit plumper. And there was a big guy probably 20-odd stone (127kg/280 lb) - he brought his own wet suit and they didn't have a weight belt big enough to get round him, he was that big - but they brought their own gear.

   So if you're not of an average size it may be worth taking your own wet suit. I mean they're cheap enough to buy if you're going to make more use of it rather than just doing it once.

2. Also, it depends if you can afford it, but definitely an underwater housing for your camera. There was a guy on the boat doing videos and I purchased, out of the four shark cage diving trips I purchased three videos. I've had one already and I thought the quality was good, the light and that was good.

   But a lot of people buy these disposable water proof cameras. I think … I was contemplating taking a proper waterproof camera before I went but didn't.

   If I was going to go again, I'd even look at getting a video housing, because I thought there was good footage that he didn't get because his camera is at the end of a pole; you're in the water so you can actually see what's going on.

   I intend to go again, I will probably buy my own video housing and video camera to take with me.

If I took the overall experience from Gansbaai, I'd give it a 10. And if I took it from False Bay, it'd be a 10.

If I had to rate the individual days, I'd say 3 of the days would be a 10 and the one day that the boat wasn't out for long, would probably be a 7.

But it would be a case of only because of the length of time we were out, nothing to do with the crew or the facilities or anything like that - purely the length of time we were out. I don't blame the charter for that, it was the fact that half the people that was going on the boat, turned up late.

Overall:

I thought it was good. We had good weather which obviously did help - it never rained at all. Good shark sightings, good visibility, good crew.

From what I saw of the other boats I would say everybody was getting a bit of shark experience, but some of the boats had more people on it and if you're out there for the same amount of time... I think smaller boats are more personal, you get more advice and a better shark experience - I think so anyway.

Parting thought:

I'm all for white shark conservation. I'd rather have people pay the money and go watch them there, than going to a captured kind of thing.

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