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Shark Diving Experience In South
Africa
Get ready for the
underwater adventure of a lifetime! Diving with the sharks is the
perfect
opportunity to get up-close and very personal with those menacing
creatures of the deep!
I recently headed to South Africa for my holiday together with a few
friends. One day, when we were touring around Cape Town, I saw an
interesting advertisement stuck on the glass door at one of the
shops, stating the place where we could book a day trip cage-diving
with the Great White Shark. I told my friends that it could be a
good idea to take the trip, making our visit more adventures and
thrilling. Local people said that the low season is the best time to
see them and we were basically there at the right time.
At first, I wasn’t too keen about it because after going through the
shark tunnel at Sea World quite sometime ago, I became quite
terrified of the creatures. And suddenly ‘The Jaws’ film came into
my mind – the part where the shark busted Richard Dreyfuss' cage.
However, looking at the prices, with plenty of support from my
friends (or rather, a gaggle of not-so-gentle verbal coercion), I
thought: oh well, no harm done, I might as well go. So we proceeded
with the registration and everything else that’s required
accordingly. Everyone looked pretty excited and couldn’t wait for
tomorrow.
After we ate our breakfast, rather nervously, I must say, that
morning, we headed to Gansbaai at about 8.00am. Gansbaai in South
Africa is absolutely the best place to see the Great White Shark, we
were told. The journey took about half an hour from our Cape Town
hotel.
 Half
an hour later, we arrived at the dive spot. We were all kitted out
in the diving gear. I was soon in a wetsuit waiting for my turn to
get into the cage after being given a short briefing. At last the
time that we were all waiting for arrived - entering the water!
Before entering into the cage, I spotted a huge dark shadow just
below the surface. I was really nervous – I nearly fainted with fear
actually. I guess I was just apprehensive about getting into the
cage, because once I was in there and got my head underwater, the
nerves just melted away. I just wanted to see those deep sea beasts.
It was a little murky at first, and I couldn't really see much. Then
one of my friends pointed out towards a huge shape with long,
elongated fins to the left of us. It was just cruising around slowly
before turning and swimming towards us. Even then though, it didn't
look like it was in an attack mode. It just swam up towards the
cage. It displayed itself to us in its full glory before circling
around us slowly. I got a chance to touch the beast when it loomed
into view and brushed against the cage’s steel bars. In about half
an hour in the water, I saw three sharks total. Out of the three,
two of them seemed pretty relaxed, seemingly curious to just want to
know what was going on in their territory. The other one was much
more inquisitive and gave the cage a knock a couple of times.
When my time was up, and I was back on the deck, I wasn't exactly
desperate to go in for the second time, but I felt like I was on a
high for the rest of the day. A couple of days later I was still
thinking about the huge shapes floating around in the blue,
occasionally taking a closer look at us. It was probably the coolest
thing I've ever done.
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Africa Hotels here
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