Continuing the theme from yesterday’s post, here are a few photos from Shark Alley, the channel between Geyser Rock and Dyer Island just off the coast of Gansbaai. The photos are from a cage diving expedition in June 2017.
Shark Alley has been featured in many Discovery Channel Shark Week episodes. For great white sharks, this spot is a veritable fast-food, swim-through dining establishment and their favorite food, cape fur seals, is always the plat du jour.
The Shark Team is one of several outfits that bring tourists out for up-close-and-personal encounters with man’s most feared ocean predator. (Great whites terrorize people but a pod of killer whales can make short work of even the largest great white. The whales are fond of the shark’s liver and have the ability to remove it leaving the carcass intact.)
The Shark Team attracts great whites with fish heads on hooks. It does not chum. When a shark approaches, a mate hauls the bait out of the water near the cage. To avoid associating people and feeding, sharks are not allowed to eat the bait.
According to the marine biologist on board, mature sharks know they won’t get fed; so most of the great whites who were interested in the bait were younger sharks measuring three to four meters in length.
Tourists suited up and took turns in the cage three or four at a time. South African waters are cold in June. Even wearing a wet suit, 30 minutes at a time was the limit for most people.
The sharks didn’t like being teased and seemed to get pissed when they didn’t get the bait.
One shark appeared to be practicing for an “Air Jaws” breaching attack.
The great whites were so close we could reach through the cage and touch them. I tried touching one behind the pectoral fin as it thrashed past but missed. The guy next to me was able to touch one. Doing that can get one kicked out of the cage not to mention the possibility of losing a hand or arm.
Final Thoughts
Being an arm’s length away from those magnificent predators was exciting. The protection of a cage and the watchful eyes of a trained crew made the experience feel completely safe – a lot safer than swimming off some of the beautiful beaches of North Carolina, Florida or Hawaii.
Amazing. Great post and images. Well done.
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The good news is I lived to tell about it, ha ha !
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Oh my god!!!
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You can say that again. 😄
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Thank you for sharing! I have done this experience in KwaZulu Natal, South Africa (but saw different sharks due to the warm temperature of the water on the east coast) and seeing your post made me relive it. Glad you enjoyed!
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I certainly had fun and I bet you did, too. I was really sorry I didn’t have an underwater camera. The program that runs swimming with whale sharks in Oslob, Philippines provides them and photos are downloaded onto a flash drive.
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I am equal parts terrified and fascinated by sharks. Cage diving with the Great Whites sounds like such an incredible experience. I’m glad I’ve never come across one while swimming or diving. Seeing one in a cage seems like an ideal encounter.
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Being in the cage felt very safe. Not in a cage… for me, no way. People who snorkel or scuba with seals seem to asking for trouble.
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my goodness me! You’re braver than I but what an awesome experience!
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Well, I didn’t volunteer to first in the cage. 😉😊
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swimming with the sharks – and living to tell about it…
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The only way I’d get into the water when I know there are great whites around is in a cage. But I’ve been scuba diving with reef sharks before.
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do the great whites attack the cage at all? and are reef sharks aggressive at all?
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Sometimes the sharks bumped the cage when they chased the bait. On my trip, they did not seem at all interested in the people in the cage. The reef sharks kept their distance. People swim with sharks all the time and don’t know it while the sharks are very aware of our presence. Sharks consciously choose not to eat people thousands if not millions of times each day.
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how kind of those sharks… 🙂
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I LOVED this experience while in South Africa. It was both terrifying and exhilarating! Here is my post from years ago in case you’d like to see it: https://maximizingluxurytravel.com/2019/08/02/holy-shark-gansbaai-delivers-big-time/
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I really liked the photos from your post about your amazing encounter with great whites. I wish I had a better camera and one that worked under water!
B/t/w I can confirm the part about killer whales in 2017. Our marine biologist warned that we might not see any great whites because of recent attacks. He showed a photo of a 5 meter female sans liver that had washed ashore at Gansbaai the previous month. There was a Shark Week episode about that string of great white killings. The show made it sound like what was happening was a big mystery when marine biologists knew immediately what was going on. I now take Shark Week episodes with a grain of salt. But we lucked out with the weather and the sharks on this trip.
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I also saw that Shark Week segment about the Orcas and White Sharks – but I had previously read an article all about it; I guess they go for max drama, no matter what.
While we were on-board, I found the shark-logging the marine biology intern was doing fascinating. It was so interesting to find out how they identified the different sharks we were seeing, I learned quite a bit and did begin to recognize the sharks!
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Sharks are fascinating animals. People swim with sharks all the time. People usually never see the sharks, but the sharks are aware of the people. Sharks almost always choose not to eat them.
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This is an amazing read.
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My post doesn’t do justice to the experience. I was hoping the tour had underwater cameras for sale, but no. They made a video from the boat that was for sale. I didn’t bight on that.
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I’ve seen reef sharks while diving but great white shark is sure a whole new level. 😀 What an awesome experience! 🙂
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Reef sharks are also the only ones I’ve seen while free diving. Seeing great whites up close (from a cage) was super fun.
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♡ “Sharks” and certain other ‘predators’ have not evolved for many years; yet arrogant people have been wiped out time after time, THINK!!! please 🤔 ?
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You’re right. Sharks have evolved to be in harmony with their environment. Humans destroy their environment and each other.
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♡ Apparently if we acquire a baby shark and place it in an aquatic tank it will not grow beyond surviving in the tank; so I Guess this is why sharks do have a limitation of growth in the ocean
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wow this is amazing!
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Cage diving with great whites was indeed amazing. Thank you for following and checking out my posts.
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