I was supposed to go out for two days but due to bad weather, I only got to go for the first day... but at least I got the one day in the cage. And it was a beautiful morning, despite leaving before dawn. But it did make for a magnificent sunrise over the island mountains. We took a 20 minute boat ride to Seal Island, to seek out the sharks.
A shot from the boat as we headed out of the harbor.
Sunrise over the islands around Seal Island, in False Bay outside of Cape Town / Simons Town.
Below is Seal Island... where there are thousands of cape fur seals live. They stay on the island all of the time, unless they are going out to sea to feed. As nature would have it, the large seal population attracts the great whites who love to feed on them as their favorite meal... as a result, the area encircling the island is known as the "ring of death". If a seal ventures too far rom the island on their own, they run the risk of getting attacked. If they stay in large groups to go out to sea, they have better chance of making the journey. When we would see a single seal off the island, we would keep an eye on it to... well, we were there to see an attack and if we were lucky, a breach. I felt kind of guilty hoping for the demise of one of the cute seals so we could see the great whites in action, but that's natural selection for you...
We also towed a couple of different seal "decoys" behind the boat to try to get the sharks to "breach" with an attack... The sad thing is that we saw a couple of natural kills, which are signaled by the sea gulls circling above, waiting to dive in for any scraps. We would rush to the scene to see what we could see, and we didn't really see much.
When the decoys didn't work and we couldn't get to the scene of the crime in time, we resorted to dropping the cage in and baiting the waters...
Here I am in the cage... don't ask about the hood, it had a collar that floated up on me and encircled my head.. But it kept me warm. Oh yeh, the water was about 65-70 degrees and really cold. We had a 5mm wetsuit, which worked out fine and I was so excited that I wasn't a bit cold... or worried when my weight belt fell off; don't worry, it landed in the cage.
As you can see, my camera fogged up in the cold water and I didn't get any good underwater pictures... I did have an encounter with a 10-12 foot great white that came within 3 feet of the cage. The visibility was about 12-15 feet so I had to wait for it to come close to see it. Once it went by it would quickly disappear out of sight, then I would have to wait for a return pass. The cage had an open view on all four sides, and the bottom, so I would have to turn and look all around and around to see if it had come back...
It's not like shark week on the Discovery Channel. The sharks don't swarm and bite the cage like on tv. It is so hard to get them even near the cage... or the boat, for that matter. The crew had to dump fish water (fish parts & blood) behind the boat, slap the water to simulate a disabled fish, toss in a whole fish as bait, and float the seal decoy behind the boat... and then pray for some action. The first sighting took over an hour and we had to move our boat next to another boat that had already attracted a shark... so we kind of stole it from them, or borrowed it for a while.
The shark came by the boat several times while I was topside, and a couple of times while I was in the cage. I got some film clips but no pictures, so I'll have to post them later. It was an amazing experience that I hope to repeat... and soon. Oh yeh, I conquered my biggest diving fear... cold water!! I might just have to try diving in Chicago sometime.
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