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It is impossible to be a diver in South Africa and not consider, or know someone who has considered (who in turn forces you to consider), cage diving with great white sharks.  I too considered it.

And there I was, all alone, my chicken friends at home in their warm little beds.  I woke up extra early, it seemed like it was barely dawn, and set out to risk my life. I signed up for a great white shark cage diving trip a half hour or so out of Cape Town, in Hermanus.  I was going to the famed Seal Rock – where hundreds of seals gather, making a rock full of steaks for great whites who have been seen here – and virtually no where else – jumping clear out of the water to snag one.  With sharks this crazy-eyed and hungry, it seemed like the worst place in the world to be dressed in a wetsuit  with a hood, thus looking the most like a seal that I have ever looked in my life.  So what – this was an adventure!

We set off that morning on a boat that was little more than a dinghy with a cage that, in its flimsiness, appeared to be made of tin foil.  The deal was one that could not be beaten.  For about $100, I got round-trip shuttle, breakfast before the trip, the boat ride, the cage diving, and lunch afterward (if you could stomach it).  I undertook this adventure in my pre-fishing boat days (and out on George’s Bank, you see a LOT of big waves, especially this time of year), but I still maintain the swells I saw that day were the size of houses.  All of the other cage-diving outfits declared it a ‘weather day’ – but apparently my trip had enough people booked that they were not going to give up that easily.

There is a particular color of water that reminds me of sharks now.  It is a murky teal blue, not unlike a turquoise necklace – but cold and very different from Caribbean seas.  Our dinghy rode the waves like a roller-coaster car, bow smashing into white foamy water.  The color contrast was stunning.  It only seemed logical that this awesome environment housed one of the oceans top predators.

The boat ultimately came to a stop (as much as one can stop on ocean waves of this magnitude). The captain took out a white five-gallon bucket of blood and assorted fish chunks, and began spooning it over the side into the waves.  At first, nothing.  Then, the shadows came.

Read more: Diving, Nature & Wildlife, Oceans, Scuba, South Africa, Travel


Meghan went around the world in 2006, and is dying to do it again. Meghan loves all things ocean and enjoys scuba diving in exotic locales.

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