January 8th- Shark Cage Diving

What a day it has been! Today is our free day; free to sleep in and lay around the house, free to go to the beach, or free to to go for a day of shopping at the outdoor market. For me and four others, however, our free day started out by waking up and being ready by 5:15am. The five of us, Ciara, Keya, Aleisha, Chun, and I, were the only ones brave enough to take on the adventures of shark cage diving. We were picked up at 5:30am by our tour/shark cage diving guide Vin and we were off! We had a 2 hour bus ride ahead of us, picking up a few people on the way. Most of us slept the whole way there, besides Aleisha who had already gotten a full 8 hours of sleep.

Our destination was White Shark Diving Co., located in Gansbaai, which is southeast of Cape Town. White Shark Diving Co. would be the company responsible for providing us a good time, and oh what a good time it was! When we got to WSDC we were escorted upstairs for breakfast and a briefing. The briefing consisted of the dos and don'ts of shark cage diving, the weather conditions we were facing, and discussing emergency plans of action. They covered just about every topic in order to ensure our safety. After the briefing, it was time to head out to the boat, it was about 8:30am. Our group climbed into the boat and then backed into the water, and our adventure began. At least that's what you'd think, right? Wrong... We had a little electrical technical difficulties before we were really able to start on our way. Once the problem was fixed, we were once again placed in the water and then we were really set to go.

They took us 3 miles off the coast and this is where we would get to see some white sharks. Once the boat was anchored, we were able to head to the upper deck. There, another briefing took place about what to look for to spot a shark and what to expect from the sharks. I had no idea that white sharks would be timid and nervous approaching a boat. Also, did you know that a shark won't approach prey with their dorsal fin out of the water? They like to sneak up on their prey and will most likely come at them from underneath! Dang, movies sure do portray sharks wrong. After the last briefing it was time for wetsuits! I've never had to put on a wetsuit before, and I hope I never have to again! Boy, those things were so hard to get on, everyone was having difficulties! After the five of us had our wetsuits on and situated we went back to the upper deck to wait. It felt like we had been waiting a long time. Looking out into the horizon, scoping out the water to see if we could catch a glimpse of a shark. I don't know about the other others, but I was losing hope little by little that we weren't going to see a shark. And then it happened.

Vin yelled and everyone rushed to the one side of the boat. I seriously thought the boat was going to flip over! But there it was, a shark! My faith had been renewed! I couldn't believe it, there, not even 5 feet from the boat, was a shark. And soon after we would find out that the first shark we saw was only a baby, about a year or two old and a little over three feet. Not even five minutes after our first shark did we see the second shark, and holy cow, did this second shark change my perspective. This shark was about 12-15 feet... About the same length of me and Keya put together or about 3/4 the length of our boat! After that sighting, everyone rushed to the lower deck to get in line for the shark cage diving.

Our group was the third group to go, but while we waited we were able to catch some awesome glimpses of the sharks. Some were jumping out of the water to try and get the bait, others were swimming right next to the cage, some were even banging into the cage. By the time it was our turn to go I was extremely excited. I received my goggles and I was the first one into the cage, I was followed by Chun, Ciara, Aleisha, and Keya! However, as I was getting into the cage, I was about halfway in, and then all of a sudden a shark popped out of the water and snatched the bait! It was crazy! I was literally within 5-10 feet of this shark while I was getting into the cage. What an experience. Once we were all placed into the cage and settled, it was actually quite humorous. The nervous giggles had started. We were all joking around and talking to each other, trying to keep one another calm, but you could tell there was a bit of nervousness in everyone's voices. This kept on for a while until we saw our first shark!

The only way you really know when a shark is coming is either by surprise of it jumping out of the water to grab the bait or by our guide yelling 'Down!' at us, which meant that a shark was close enough to the cage that we should be able to see it through the murkiness of the water. Our first encounter as a group was a shark that had jumped out of the water, it had surprised us all! We stuck our heads underwater to see if it would swim by, but it didn't. This was pretty consistent with all of our shark encounters. We saw them above the water, but we didn't really get the opportunity to really see one pass us by. Not going to lie, it was a little disappointing. Then we got our 2 minute warning, which kind of dampened everyone's spirits because we had had the same opportunity as the groups previous to us. But not even a minute later, there was another shark! It had actually thrashed into our cage trying to grab that bait! We went under and could see it swimming by. Keya and Aleisha got the better view of the shark since the bait was closest to them, but we finally were able to see some of the shark as it swan by. This meant that the shark was within 7 feet of us, because that was the available visibility to us.

In total, we had 5 sharks swimming by us, trying to snatch the bait. What an unforgettable experience this will be. Once we were out of the cage and sitting on the boat, the group was kind of silent. Everyone was just shocked that we really had just experienced real shark cage diving! As we sat on the lower deck we were able to watch the last group and their shark encounters. Once everyone was done we loaded up the lower deck and off we were, back to shore. It was kind of sad. I could have sat on that water all day and watched the sharks.

By the time we got back it was noon. We were sent back to the area where we had breakfast and given lunch. While eating lunch we watched the footage that the filmographer had captured while on the boat with us! He got both above and under water footage. Seeing it all live again, it was crazy to think that we had just been on that boat and had just seen all those sharks. We all pitched in for a DVD, we are going to burn it once we get back to the states so we can each have one. Our day ended with a little shopping in the souvenir store and then another long 2 hour ride back home. We were all exhausted from our long, exciting day. Each and everyone of us would definitely recommend this opportunity to others if given the chance. Not once did we feel threatened or that we were in some kind of danger. It was seriously one of the craziest things I will ever experience.

-Britt