JAWS

As you, my loyal readers, may recall, back in St Francis I volunteer at a penguin rehabilitation centre. Before we left on our trip Trudy, the woman who runs the centre, had offered to hook us up with friends of hers who do shark research in the Western Cape. We were keen to get out on their boat, so we got in touch with her contacts and organized a day that worked – February 1^st. What we didn’t realize until the day before was that we were actually going shark cage diving, not on a research vessel. Personally, I had been having reservations about shark cage diving – not due to fear, but for ecological reasons. It seemed unfair to bait sharks for human enjoyment. However, since Trudy had helped arrange it, I decided to give it a try.

The dive operation was smooth and well run – we were fed a breakfast feast before heading out on the boat, where scientists and volunteers told us all about the area. When we reached the site, there were several other shark diving boats in the area, and I wasn’t expecting our boat’s chum to draw any sharks our way. But within a couple of minutes a 4.2m male Great White Shark swam up to our boat, splashing its tail and jerking as the bait was tantalizingly pulled out of reach. I was at once enthralled and disgusted – the shark was incredibly magnificent, but it was being treated like a dog, drawn to the boat by the smell, confused by decoy seals and bait bunches, and made to parade in front of tourists.

Before I had a chance to process all this, I was shepherded into the dive cage. The water was icy cold and I was extremely thankful for my wetsuit. When a shark was spotted, we were barked at to go underwater – and it was really cool to see the shark up close. But I kept wishing I were out of the cage, diving with the sharks peacefully, without banging noises and shrieking captains and boisterous onlookers.

The shark cage diving operation wasn’t all bad, however. I could see there was genuine science occurring (their research vessel pulled up next to ours after a couple of hours), and the crew was quite knowledgeable. What I respected them for most, however, were their efforts at saving a shark that had become wrapped in fishing line. For the past four days they’d attempted to bait and catch the shark in order to take it onto their research vessel and remove the fishing line that was cutting into its skin and would kill the shark within a year. Unfortunately, they didn’t have any luck catching the shark when we were there.

The fishing line is very obviously cutting into the shark's skin.

Would I shark cage dive again? Probably not. I don't think it's a very conscientious industry on the whole. But I'm happy that part of what I paid went into shark research, and I am thrilled that I got to see a part of the world that EVERY major wildlife documentary film crew has been to to film Great Whites. 

"Shark Alley", an area where hundreds of Cape Fur Seals make their habitat, and make delicious meals for sharks.