Cape Town - Peering into the murky blue below my dive booties a jolt to the cage that brings my head jerking up and my eyes level with those of a great white shark.
Watching the apex predator’s massive set of teeth gnaw at the metal inches from my face, what races through my mind is surprising: I am not scared, rather in awe.
The magnificent creature before me isn’t a monster. It is majestic.
I had been horribly misinformed. I’ve never actually seen the movie Jaws, but I am still a product of what it’s done to the culture around sharks. What I thought I “knew” about great whites was actually a series of misperceptions.
Scanning the spread of hot breakfast and vacant faces only hours earlier, it had felt Last Supper-like. There was stress in the early morning quiet as we waited to be briefed on what some might consider a death wish.
What attracted us – a motley crew from Holland, Portugal, the US, South Africa – to Gansbaai as the sun rose? Your guess was as good as mine.
“Don’t look so nervous. Don’t worry, it’s my first day too,” quipped Shark Lady dive master Lance Coetzee. “We’ll just wing it.”
Luckily, this was about as far from the truth as possible.
Started by Kim McLean in 1992, Shark Lady is a pioneer in shark-cage diving in the great white shark capital of the world. On the walls are photos of A-listers who, to the best of my knowledge, are still alive and kicking (with both legs). Jean-Michel Cousteau, Prince William, Brad Pitt. If Rihanna could do it, surely I could.
McLean is worried shark-cage diving has become too commercial. “There’s very little passion, I feel, left in the industry,” she says.
Her passion, says McLean, is to keep on the legacy of these creatures not being monsters and maneaters “and all the gory details that tend to be brought out”.
“Let’s not misunderstand,” she says. “It’s a hunter. It’s a predator. It’s a dangerous animal. It’s a powerful animal.”
But we are in their space. And since we are in the sharks’ space, it is important to be gentle and treat them with respect, says McLean.
Bait is let out on a natural-fibre rope that is biodegradable so if the animal swallows any piece, it is digestible (a far cry from the chains of the old days). The shark is never pulled into the boat, or drawn in anywhere it could get cut on equipment.
“If they’re curious, they are going to bite you to see what you are,” says McLean. “That is the animal’s prerogative, that is why they are so unique.”
McLean says great whites are similar to the lion in their hunting patterns.
“They will come from behind. They will use the element of surprise.”
The boat rocks gently in the shining blue, waves lapping against the side. Here on the water, it’s more relaxed. Coetzee begins to throw chum – a sort of soup of fish and ocean water – off the side of the boat, and lets out the bait, two tuna heads, on a long rope. These measures aren’t meant to feed or reward the sharks, only to attract them, says Coetzee.
Chumming, for a time, was controversial. Every time there was a shark incident in False Bay or Muizenberg, McLean says, organisations such as hers would get hammered for supposedly conditioning the sharks to see humans as bait. But that’s not how it works, she says.
Over time, sharks have got used to the sound of engines in the ocean and fish scraps being thrown over the side. In a busy ocean, they’re becoming accustomed to boat activity.
But sharks are nomadic creatures. In the short amount of time they’re with a boat, it’s simply an encounter, and exploration. And then they’re off.
Save for a few resident sharks that are spotted every few seasons, the sharks encountered in cage-diving activity are different every time.
The area is a mecca for sharks because of a coastline dotted with the seal islands.
“It’s uneducated people who think of sharks as violent,” says McLean. “If they are to look through the animal’s eyes in any situation, just very simply, they’re going to get most of their answers.”
The reason shark incidents and attacks have happened more often of late, she says, is because of increased tourism and activity in a space that is the sharks’.
Da-dun. Da-dun. Da-dun, da-dun, da-dun.
It’s actually not like that. At all. There’s no eerily approaching fin slicing through the water. Instead, gulls circle the boat – these are a good indicator of shark activity, says Coetzee. And before a spotter can barely yell “shark!” there’s a splash on the side of the boat and we get our first glimpse of a great white.
“There’s this idea that it’s this fearless creature that will just come up to the boat and that’s a misperception,” says Coetzee. “We are not part of it’s natural diet.”
Really, it’s curiosity, he says. “Are you food? It’s as much an exploration for the sharks as it is for the humans.”
And yes, investigation can mean biting. The splash sends the first few divers into the cage, and from there, it’s a waiting game.
For minutes there’s only calm. A camaraderie has developed on the boat and someone in the cage smiles and offers to cut his hand.
Then it’s back. It’s sudden and seems to come out of nowhere, but it’s there, splashing beside the cage.
When the fin breaks the surface, I’ll admit, it feels as if we’re in a movie. But it’s not a scary movie.
I expected teeth-bearing aggression. Not this majestic, gentle creature.
There’s no fearsome gore in it’s presence, but an immense elegance. Its movements are strong and purposeful.
When you’re in the cage, you can’t see them till they get close – they appear suddenly and make their pass. Some come from below, open teeth, cutting the surface of the water, tasting the bait. Some come from the side, taking close passes by the cage.
Our numbers for the day are impressive. Six different sharks took turns round the boat, one actually took the bait. The last shark (the cage nibbler) was three metres long.
For McLean, her work is about spreading a message, “letting people see and decide for themselves whether this creature is graceful or a maneater”.
“People go out with a fear. You know it by the questions they ask. You can see it in their faces in the briefing. And when they come back, they are different,” she says.
Cape Argus