Guest comment: “Beauitful activity and experience! Thank you for the impeccable organisation and quality of the personnel!” – Nancy
“It was a fantastic experience. Staff was very professional and content was intersting! Bravo!” – Florence & Audreanne
“Epic shark dive! I love Marine Dynamics!” – Kristy
09/11/2016
Location: Joubertsdam
Water Temperature: 17.8’C + 18.2’C + 18.4’C
Depth: 12.1m + 12.2m + 10.8m
Visibility: 0-0.5m the entire day
Number of Sharks: 10 + 9 + 11
Conditions: Light wind and swell throughout the day with clear skies and murky waters.
A beautiful day out on the water with out guests enjoying the sunshine and some fantastic shark activity. The first trip of the day launched bright and early and headed into the Shallows to be met with near zero visibility! Whilst Gansbaai is known to many as the White shark Capital we often struggle with the water clarity due to our shallow dive areas, close proximity to the shore and strong sea conditions. Thankfully the sharks made up for this lack of viewing underwater with some impressive behaviour. The sharks appeared approximately 25 minutes after we did with some large animals coming up to the boat including one of the largest we have been seeing in the bay currently, a large female estimated close to the size of the cage which is 4.6m in length. This trip also saw two smaller females we know very well, “Chardonnay” and “Momi” both adopted and named by some of our visitors. The trip ended with a visit from one of our acoustically tagged males.
The second trip of the day was off to a fantastic start with a small shark appearing at the surface asa we arrived. Second on the scene was “Scarlett”, a beloved shark to many she is well known in this area for her distinctive scars and beautifully slow and determined movements through the water. “Momi” and the tagged male were back for a visit again and also one of our previously tagged males, “Vuvuzela” made an appearance during the last hour of the trip.
The third and final trip of the day set out hoping to repeat the success of the day’s previous two trips. Within five minutes of arriving at our cage our first shark was spotted, a very small but playful juvenile that spent most of the afternoon appearing and disappearing around the boat. “Momi”, “Pieter” and the tagged male yet again made appearances for our new guests but we were also lucky to see some new sharks this afternoon with “Nala” a large female just under 4.0m showing up as well as a smaller female we haven’t seen for a while named “Taryn-it-up”, these two females are again adopted and named White sharks that we are able to observe and monitor from our shark cage diving boat, Slashfin!
All three of our trips today were also treated to the sight of Short-tailed stingrays, a species more common with an increase in our water temperatures, usually above 15.0’C.
Whilst the conditions, especially trhe visibility, made for a challanging day on and in the water, the shark activity was truly impressive and we thank our visitors today for their positive attitudes and understanding and we hope they enjoyed the day as much as the Marine Dynamics team did!
If you are looking to get up close and personal with the great white shark then Shark Diving in Gansbaai, and more specifically with Marine Dynamics, is a once-in-a-lifetime experience you won’t want to miss. Book and pay online with us and get a free video of your encounter with the world’s apex predator.
