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It is Halloween and this year instead of dressing up like a sexy mermaid, nurse, cop… I am dressed up like a fat seal, the favorite food of the great white shark, in my hooded black wetsuit.  I am about to do perhaps the scariest thing you can do on Halloween, jump into a flimsy cage, suspended in the Indian Ocean, which I’m told is teeming with the said predators – and I have paid nearly $150 for the privilege. Is there something wrong here?

I arrived in Cape Town at 2 am and was up again at 4:30 am for my 2 hour drive to Gansbaai, perhaps the best place in the world to see great whites!   I am with a bunch of Aussie guys on a stag weekend who are still drunk from the night before and are green faced on the boat ride out to our dive site.  Within 5 minutes of anchoring there is a shark practically on our boat trying to get a bite of the tuna head on the bait line (see video).  I’m already suited up and volunteer to get in the cage first! The cage itself just about holds four adults, in a side-by-side standing formation, and is tethered to the side of the boat like a kind of punishment cell.   The sharks supposedly are scared of bubbles so most companies don’t use scuba gear.  When a shark is close they cry, “Look out, on the bait, on the bait!” and you dunk under and hold your breath.  Within seconds I see the sleek form of a 3.5m long shark passing the cage just inches from my nose.  After a few more “swim-by” experiences, it is my turn to switch out of the cage and give someone else a chance.  My weight belt is off and I am half way out of the cage and half way on to the boat, when the great white bites on the tuna head that is 10 inches from my exposed head!  I don’t know if it is better for me to jump back into the cage or climb up the ladder onto the boat (my precious legs might find there way into the sharks mouth if I climb up).  I freeze and wait for instructions from the experts, but they never told me first or last what I should do, and found the whole incidence incredibly funny!  So I just stand there in a state of shock and watch the shark thrash and gnaw at the bait.  I can smell the sharks breathe and if I was any closer I would be in its mouth!  Eventually it releases the bait line and someone pulls me onto the boat. 

The next group jumps into the cage and gets a quick glimpse of a shark and then nothing.  They wait for almost 45 min in the freezing cold water and there is not even a bite.  Eventually they are too cold to care and get out of the cage.  Our guide asks if anyone wants to give it a second go, but no one sees the point since there has been no sharks in the last hour.  I’m still pumped from my close encounter so jump back in the cage (this time alone).  I am happy to stay in the cage for hours and I’m immune to cold water from my diving days in Newfoundland.  I have my back to the bait line with my mask propped up on my head chatting to the guys on the boat when they shout out “ Erin, shark, shark duck down quick”!  I flip around and dive under trying to get my mask on my face.  I’m not ready for this shark and I don’t even have a grip on anything.  I see the shark is coming at the cage head on!  It smashes into the cage and because the weight in the cage is not balanced it tips onto a bit of an angle and I drift to the other end of the cage.  The shark keeps banging into the cage and I still don’t have my grip on the handle bars, so I bounce around in the cage a bit and all my effort goes into keeping my limbs inside the cage.   Finally they put another girl in with me and then another guy and I get my footings.  This shark had it out for us (me) and starts biting at the cage!  I’m not sure if it was my seal impressions that attracted the shark, or maybe because it was my time of the month, or perhaps it was due to the fact that the bait man keep putting the tuna head on my head, but the great whites loved me a little too much!   And just think I was looking for a company that did the dive without the cage (HA)!   To top off the day on the way back to shore we saw a great white breach!  It fired completely out of the water several times chasing a flying seal!  It was the coolest experience of my life and I got some pretty funny/scary footage of the whole thing which I will post when I return.  If you are in South Africa go cage diving it is so awesome!    

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