Cage Diving with Great Whites

After Greg’s two work trips and literally everyone at Post raving about it, we finally decided to take a vacation to South Africa, specifically Cape Town.  There were a lot of reasons to go to Cape Town, like cute little penguins, good wine, delicious food, and gorgeous sights, but the main reason for this trip was to go cage diving with great white sharks!

We had heard that the best time for cage diving was in September, however, this was slightly misleading due to recent changes in the weather and environment.  We started our trip in Simon’s Town, which is known for its breaching sharks.  The sharks will actually leap out of the water a couple of feet in the air as they attack their prey from below.  We specifically chose a company who tries to get this to happen while you are out due to my love of Shark Week.

On our first day in Simon’s Town the wind was awful, which was causing bad waves, and because of this, none of the cage diving companies were taking anyone out.  While this sucked, we figured we would be okay as we purposely built in an extra day into our schedule just in case.  However, the news got worse.  With global warming, the sharks were apparently leaving the area earlier and earlier every year and none of the companies had really seen any sharks for the past few days. Luckily, the company we chose was willing to work with us and set us up with another company all the way out in Gansbaai, which is about two and a half hours away.  Not what we really wanted, but our main goal was to dive with the sharks so if we had to take a road trip to do it, we were taking that road trip! In the meantime, we made plans to hang out with another iconic animal, the Cape Penguins!

Katie & Greg in Simons Town.

Since we now had this free day before our shark dive, we headed to the beach early to hang out with the penguins.  Besides one other lady, we were the only people on a beach full of penguins. While they are cute, they sure do make the weirdest noises.  They actually make a loud call that sounds like a donkey, which is where they get their other name from, “Jackass Penguin.” To see all my photos of the penguins and the rest of our time in South Africa, check out our SmugMug Page!

Simons Town!

Cape Penguins in love!

Greg with the penguins.

Katie with the penguins.

After a good amount of time with the penguins, we headed to Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope.  To say it was windy would be an understatement.  It was just leaving winter and entering spring, so it was a little cold but the wind really got you.  However, the views were absolutely stunning.  While we didn’t see any whales off in the distance, we did run into some baboons, ostriches, and we even saw an eland!

Cape Point, South Africa.

Greg & Katie in Cape Point.

Greg & Katie at the Cape of Good Hope.

Eland!

Ostriches!

The next morning we were up bright and early to make the drive out to Gansbaai.  We made it there with plenty of time to spare and the group ahead of us came back a lot later than originally planned.  The good news was that they saw a bunch of sharks.  We got our briefing, grabbed our rain jackets, and headed out to sea.  We got to our spot and were greeted by a few sharks circling the cage the other group used, while the crew made up the chum buckets.

On the boat to go see Great Whites!

Suited up to go cage diving with Great Whites!

I didn’t want to be the first ones in just in case something should go wrong.  So while the first group was in, we wiggled into our full body wetsuits and waited our turn.  The moment you slip into the cage, you think, “what in the world was I thinking, this is crazy.”  Mainly because the water felt like ice.  It was 14 degrees Celsius which is about 57 degrees Fahrenheit.  Once in, it was exciting knowing just how close to the sharks you really were.  Our first go around we were all the way to the left of the cage and the sharks seemed to be more on the right side, so we felt we didn’t get the best viewing.  Lucky for us, once everyone on the boat had gone they let people get a second turn.  This time we were smart and made sure to get as far right in the cage as we could.  My body started shaking the moment we hit the water, it was so cold.  I think my goosebumps had goosebumps.

Great White!

A little blurry, but still cool seeing it jump out of the water a bit.

Here sharky, sharky!

The crew members lure the sharks in with a huge thing of bait that they try to drag it across the front of the cage so that you can get an up close and personal view of the sharks.  As they see the sharks coming they yell “get down” so you know to go underwater to see the shark swim by.  We had one magical pass where the shark swam into the side of the cage and just glided along the entire thing.  It was awesome and by far the moment we had been waiting for on this trip!  After everyone had been in with the sharks at least twice, there was a little time left over and the company took us over to Seal Island (Geyser Rock).  Here, a colony of 60,000 Cape Fur Seals breed and live. What they failed to mention was how stinky it was!  It was cute to watch all the seals bobbing around in the ocean, but man did it smell.

So many seals!

So stinking cute!

With the day a success, it was time for Greg and me to make the long journey back to Cape Town.