Shark on the menu.....

Shark was on the menu for today as we were going cage diving with great whites!!!!!!  We were going on an excursion near Gansbaai, the Great White Shark capital of the world.

Video clip 1

The day started perfectly with a healthy fruit salad and muesli brekkie in the B & B (Hadeda's by the way, highly recommended: www.hadedaslodge.co.za).  Then we headed off to Gansbaai and 'Shark Lady' the company we were going diving with.  We were warmly greeted by a rather butch looking woman (truck driver as Lise called her!) and then a brief explanation of what would happen.  Myself and Paul then went in the office to pay, a long wait due to the card machine being a bit shite, and I had a chance to shit myself by looking at the photos on the wall - one in particular stood out -  a Great White one third out of the water with its teeth covered in what looked like blood, and about to chomp into metal... man, it looked terrifying and I thought for a moment 'what the strut am I doing??'  But it was too late to back out, and there was no way I wanted to really.  Anna-Marie and Michael were wimps and just opted for watching on the boat, but I wanted all in.  After all, it's not everyday that you get the chance to get this close to one of the most feared animals in the world...

Video clip 2

So, after another briefing by one of the guys that would be on the boat, we headed off to the jetty and onto the rather small boat that would be our home for the next few hours.  The sea was more than a bit rough, and Paul was loudly sick in the toilet about 30 mins into it.  I wasn't far off being sick myself - the rocking of the boat in the choppy sea with the rank smell of the rotting chum, urgh, I can still smell it now, sick.  When Anna-Marie saw the fish head that would be the bait getting hooked through its eye it was enough to make her sick over the side.  She never does like being in boats.

Aerial view of shark

Anyway, I'm waffling too much.......  After about 20 mins with no shark sightings I was beginning to think that maybe we'd shit out and wouldn't actually get to see anything.  But soon the guys shouted: "Shark!!!!  First 4 divers ready for the cage!!!"  So me and Paul bustled to the front, no way was I missing out on this!  I jumped into the cage which was half submerged in the sea, it was cold as!  I got a bit of a shock and swallowed loads of sea water, wasn't the best really.  The guys were shouting things like: 'shark to your left, dive now!'  so we had to hold our breath and dive down under water.  It was unbelievable, I couldn't get over how close we were to Great White Sharks,  truely awesome.  We were in the cage for about 5 minutes, then it was the turn of the other guys to get in and have a watch.  I was buzzing big time, and we got another couple of goes in the cage, by which time I was used to the cold.  I was still spitting out water and burping because of the salt water though, and Paul was doing the same - 2 guys in the cage with us were perfectly silent, God knows what they must have been thinking about us!!  It was amazing though, I would defo do it again, but get an underwater camera next time as you have to see to believe.  Awesome.

All at Birkenhead brewery

The day was not over after the shark thing had finished - we still had Birkenhead Brewery to visit.  Nice place, lovely beer and we even came out with 18 free bottles, not bad eh!!  Quite handy to have been born in Birkenhead on the Wirral, as the Chief Brewer thought that was interesting and gave us some beers.  Nice one!!

The day was finished off by a barbeque, or braai as they call it over here.

Cage and divers

Check out the fin

Chum and shark

I'm on the right!

The boat

The brewery

The cage!