Guest comment: “Such a wonderful trip! The whole experience was professionally organised. Staff extremely helpful!” – Janet
“Really great experience – very safe and well organised. Highlight of our Honeymoon so far!” – David + Katie
“Awesome experience. Keep up the good work!” – Rob
05/12/2016
Location: Joubertsdam
Water Temperature: 17.1’C + 17.3’C
Depth: 10.2m + 10.0m
Visibility: 0-0.5m
Number of Sharks: 13 + 8
Conditions: Clear skies with a slight wind and medium sized swell.
Trip 1
A fantastic morning to start a new week with a clear, sunny day greeting our team and guests. This morning saw a slight wind and swell however the challenge of the day was seeing these sharks under the water with a highly limited clarity to the water it was a struggle for the divers to even see horizontally 0.5m. This decreased visibility did not deter our White sharks and we saw sharks within 20 minutes of our first trip anchoring. The first shark sighted was a female with quite distinct scaring near the right side gills and a lack of the upper lobe of the caudal fin. She was quickly followed by one of our tagged animals and the sharks just kept coming. “Pieter” and “Sarko” were two of our well known sharks that made an appearance, “Pieter” known for his history in our studies such as the tagging and biopsy programs and “Sarko” is currently holding the title of shark longest in the bay for this year as we first saw her in the last week of our Winter season up till now. This trip also had another visitor to the boat, a Short-tailed stingray.
Trip 2
The second trip of the day launched to a smaller swell but an increased wind, yet unfortunately the visibility stayed the same. The sharks were yet again numerous for this trip, with a shark spotted cruising on the surface as we made our way towards our cage and then 15 minutes later our first close up with “Paisley” arriving at the boat. “Paisley” is a large female we were fortunate enough to tag last December and we are happy to see that she has retained this tag for 12 months now. We also had “Nala” and “Sarko” around this afternoon, two of our adopted female White sharks as well as the female from the first trip with the tip of the tail missing. This missing lobe could have been caused by either another shark or human interaction and at the moment we are seeing two sharks in the bay with this injury. The other shark is a male similar in size and he too also turned up this afternoon around the boat.
If you are looking to get up close and personal with the great white shark then White Shark Diving in Gansbaai, and more specifically with Marine Dynamics, is a once-in-a-lifetime experience you won’t want to miss. Book and pay online with us and get a free video of your encounter with the world’s apex predator.
