My Day of Days

It started off with a 4:30am wake up in anticipation of a 5:15 pick up for our Shark Breaching trip off False Bay. We booked a trip with Apex Predators. The same company Discovery Channel uses for Shark Week and Air Jaws. Chris Fallows is the host of those shows and I was hoping he’d be our tour guide for this day. We were picked up by a lovely lady by the name of Sharon who proceeded to drive us to Simon’s Town. All along giving us a nice history lesson. Once we arrived about 45 minutes later, we headed down to the harbor to meet our crew and find our boat. We found them quickly and boarded the boat ready to see us some breaching Great White Sharks. It took about 20 minutes to get out to Seal Island. The small uninhabited island off the coast of Simon’s Town in False Bay which is home to approximately 40,000 African Cape Fur Seals.

It’s also a major feeding ground for Great White Sharks who patrol the surrounding water waiting for seal pups to fall behind their parents and thus be that day’s lunch. We saw dolphins swimming in our wake, plenty of barking Fur Seals but no Great Whites. We hung around waiting to watch natural breaching. No luck. We towed a seal decoy in 3 different spots. No luck. Finally, the decision was made to drop the shark diving cage into the water and to try to get some sharks to play. I volunteered to go in with the first group. It was actually just myself and a friend of Chris and Monique. Super nice guy named Ben. We got into our wetsuits and waited for a shark. We were warned the water was colder than the previous day in Gansbaai. How right they were. After about 30 minutes, Jeremy, one of the crew members, spotted a shark. Chris and Monique immediately told us to get into the cage. They opened the top and Monique told me to “GET IN! GET IN! GET IN!” I had no time to assess the situation and plunged into the green-gray water. HOLY FRICKING CRAP! I’ve never had a shock like that in my life. But whatever! Let’s see some sharks! I took a deep breath and went under.

Nothing.

I scanned left. I scanned right. Up. Down. Nothing. Visibility was good. Even great. I could see a good 20-30 feet. I popped back up and turned to Ben. “You see anything?”

“No.”

We went back under and looked around again. Nothing. We did this for a good 20 or so minutes. Up. Down. The cold was starting to take effect. My head was starting to hurt. My motor functions were starting to slow. I could no longer open and close my hands. I was just about to waive the white flag and ask to get out when I decided to go under one more time. I took as deep as a breath as I could and went down. I looked straight ahead. Nothing. Then I looked left and deep in the water, I could make out a dark shadow. I tapped Ben on the thigh since he was above water talking to Monique negotiating our exit. 

Out of the murky depths came the most majestic creature I had ever seen. He was swimming coolly. It looked like he was barely exerting any effort at all. He swooped in and made a pass. Then went deep and came around from our left. He stayed with us for a good 10-15 minutes. Circling the cage so close, I could have reached out and touched him. So close I could see his pearly whites and the classic overbite you see on Great White Sharks. I didn’t feel the cold anymore. Adrenaline was pouring through my veins as I kept diving, almost forgetting I had to rise to the surface to breath. All I wanted to do is stay under and see more. After another 15 minutes (which meant we had been in the water for close to 40 minutes), we got out. The cold finally kicked back in as I struggled to grasp onto the rails. They had to pull me onboard like a dead whale. I quickly stripped off my wetsuit to get into some dry clothes. As I was zipping up my jacket, I looked out and saw him breach. It was a natural breach. He wasn't hunting, he was just showing off. I amazingly caught the whole thing. It was extraordinary. 

This is not my photo, but this is exactly how he looked. His head to the left in a "J" shape with his tail in the air. He completely clearly the surface of the water. Sadly, only a few people on the boat saw it. Fortunately, I was one of them.

Me, Ben, Chris Fallows, Monique Fallows, Erika