JAWS

Life to do list: swim with Great White Sharks – check. On Saturday Matt, Dag, and I drove two hours past Hermanus (famous for whale watching) to the town of Gansbaai to go face-to-face with the ocean’s deadliest predator. At Shark Diving Unlimited we were met with a light breakfast, a short safety talk, and a waiver signing our lives away. We then boated a short distance to Seal Island, which hosts a fur seal population of approximately 75,000 (75,000 tasty reasons why the sharks are so active in this area). The island looks dark in the distance, but up close you can see that it’s that densely packed with seals.

Once we were anchored and snug in our wetsuits it was time to attract the sharks. Since it’s illegal to use mammal products for chumming, the water soon turned murky as fish parts were dumped into the ocean. It was only a few minutes later that the first sharks were drawn to the scent of fish-blood soup. Much to the chagrin of my fellow passengers I couldn’t help but hum the Jaws theme song. We lowered ourselves into a small steel cage - the only protection from the hungry predators we were intruding upon. We were told not to try to touch the sharks. I thought this piece of instruction was somewhat unnecessary, but who knows, there might be someone just crazy enough to gamble away a limb or two. It wouldn’t have been hard either. The gaps in the cage were easily large enough for a hand or foot to get through.

Armed with a fish head fastened to the end of a rope, our guide (I never caught his name, Ahab perhaps?) perched himself on the side of the boat and started baiting the sharks. They would slowly approach the food and then with lighting speed chomp down on the bait. The guide, in return, would yank on the rope and wrestle the fish head out of the shark’s clenched jaws. This man might have one the craziest jobs I’ve ever seen. He literally had to balance unattached on top of a rocking boat and taunt the most dangerous fish in the ocean.

Since we didn’t have any diving equipment we held ourselves above water until the guide yelled “DOWN”, at which point we took a deep breath and dunked underwater to view the sharks. Although I’m sure I was safe, that did nothing to stop the flow of adrenaline as sharks rocked and rattled the cage. Luckily they didn’t take too much interest in us, although I could hear plenty of underwater screams as the sharks bumped into us during their struggle with our guide. We had some excellent views of these underwater beasts. At one point there were three all fighting for the same fish head. Their sizes ranged from 3 to 5 meters. 5 meters is a MASSIVE animal up close. Luckily he wasn’t too close.