Great White Shark Diving by Noa (May 9, 2011)

Noa & a biggie swims by



This is the one thing I really wanted to do on our trip. I don't know why, I just did. We left from Camps Bay hotel to go shark diving and it was a 2 hour drive to get to the boat run by “The Shark Project” we were going to ride in. when we got there, the guide told us what we were going to be doing and she kept saying how safe it was… which actually started to make me more nervous.  The ride out to “Shark alley” was about 20 minutes long and through really big swells. I loved it when the boat went up and slammed down the waves, but I’m not sure some other people on the boat did. They told us all if you felt seasick to lick a lollipop.  The experts dropped the shark cage into the water and gave us 7mm thick wetsuits. Since the wetsuits made us float more, they made us put on extra weight belt  to hold us underwater. I have a 4mm one at home and I felt warm in 50 degree water. When I crawled in the cage, the ocean water started seeping into my wetsuit through the zippers…and it was FREEZING! My mom, dad and I all got in the cage together.  When we hung on to the bars, we had to keep our hands and feet inside or the shark might snack on them.  My dad had the little underwater camera and he stuck his hand through trying to get a good shot. The first Great White we saw was 3 meters long, about 10 ft. I looked at my mom and I could tell that she was freaked out. Plus we had to hold our breath underwater, even though we had masks on, they didn’t give us snorkels or scuba stuff to breathe. We saw about 10 sharks swimming around the boat, and the biggest one had parasites on its head so we could recognize it every time. When we got out of the water and took off our wetsuits, it was still freezing, even though the sun was out. We went back to shore and the guide told us more about the Great White shark dilemmas. People are hunting them for big trophy jaws, and they are getting killed too fast to grow up really big, like 5 meters for a full size adult. Plus all the gill net fishing in the open ocean and demand for shark fin soup is totally killing all the shark population. So even though they are scary in the ocean, the Great White is almost endangered.  I have a lot of respect for sharks now. Because here we were, right in the water with them, and some juicy tuna heads floating nearby, but they didn’t attack really, just kept circling around and checking everything out.  It was cool. I will probably never forget being so close to a Great White. I’m glad my dad let me do it.