Blogs from Gansbaai, Western Cape, South Africa, Africa - page 2

Alright, I had been looking forward to visiting Cape Agulhas the entire trip. We were going there initially at the beginning of the trip, while visiting Cape Town a few weeks ago. But we didn't have time and figured we could go there after we knew that our path to the Final would start in Durban, go by Port Elizabeth and back to Cape Town for the semi-final. We got up early, got in the car and drove straight south towards Cape Agulhas. It took us about 45 minutes to get there and we basically had the place to ourselves. To be honest, there isn't much to see at the furthest southern point you can go in Africa. It's a coastline like any other, perhaps with a little more history, that has a little monument marking ... read more

Just outside of Cape Town you can go diving with the Great White Sharks. They lower a cage next to the boat and you drop yourself into the cage and the sharks swim right up to you and stare you in the face. They attract the sharks to the cage with fish blood and guts called Chum. They even put a large fish head on a rope and try to get the shark to lunge at the cage as they pull the fish towards your face. The cage is one foot square iron grids so the shark's nose even goes inside the cage a bit if the guy handling the fish head is good. If you put your hands or feet outside the cage even a few inches, the sharks can have a bit of you ... read more

Yes... We really did dive with Great White Sharks. We had a very early morning, picked up from our hotel at 5:45am. We drove about 2.5 hours to a little town called Gansbaai to board our catamaran style boat. Luckily we had taken our sea sick tablets because the waves were huge. We headed out into the ocean for about an hour. Once we had anchored up the skippers started to "chum" the waters with Tuna juices and fish to attract the sharks. Within 10 minutes while we were all getting fitted in our wetsuits there were already sharks around the boat. We decided not to go first and watched the first group in the cage from the top of the boat. There are 6 in each cage and you are attached to the side of ... read more

"This is madness." - Sam We have come to Gansbaai, South Africa, with Dyer Island on the horizon - home to one of the world's densest populations of Great White Sharks. The Man-eating Shark. Carcharodon carcharias. And we're strapping on wetsuits. Sam is right. This is madness. The Great White Shark, one of the greatest predators alive, is considered an endangered animal. Humans have hunted them to "vulnerable" levels. Even here at Dyer Island, sightings of full grown sharks (up to 20 ft long and over 4000 lbs) are rare nowadays. The Great Whites' diet is carnivorous and eating habits are legendary. If you believe in reincarnation, it's probably best not to wish to come back as a sea lion. The shark speaks with its teeth. They don't have hands, so they use their mouths for ... read more

On Saturday it was the Great White Shark Diving from Gansbaai harbour about 2 hours drive from our luxury warm beds in Franschhoek Valley and we set off at 5am - can't believe how many early starts there have been. Still rather go shark diving at that time rather than work :). After a picturesque drive through the valley watching the sunrise over the mountains (in between dropping off to sleep and Miss Satnav barking directions and waking us up...speak for yourself Ian), we arrived at the meeting point about 5 minutes from the harbour. Uncle Jeff was deliberating throughout the week (Although Aunt Irene didn't think it was wise!) whether or not to join us, with his possible sea sickness the stumbling block. After we had all paid our Rand and bought our non shark ... read more