Shark Cage Diving
 

We are weriously thinking of adding a day trip from Cape Town out to Hermanus to do shark cage diving. Actually some of us will do some snorkeling in the cage and some will just watch from the boat. Our travel agent has recommended White Shark Ecoventures. Has anyone had any experience doing this? We talked to a guy the other night who said it was a highlight of his South Africa trip. Should we do it? How rough is the boat ride.? We would be going June 19th or 20th. Thanks for any feedback!

Oops - didn't do andy checking of spelling. I meant "seriously" not weriously.

There are lots of threads re shark cage diving. Do a search on this board for more details. We did this, and it was great, but we visited end-November... don't know the situation for June.

jcasale,

With regard to shark diving I suggest that you put yourselves in the hands
of Chris Fallows and his staff from African Shark Eco Charters.
(http://www.ultimate-animals.com/ ) This is in my opinion the best shark
cage diving outfit in Cape Town. They know what they are doing and they are
not reckless. Some of the shark cage operators do not conform to these
standards. Chris Fallows and his partner Rob definitely do. Please note that cage diving is a whole day event starting in the early morning and then returning home in the evening.

What is fabulous about doing the charter with Chris is that you do not have to stay in Hermanus as they do all their shark expeditions around seal island in False Bay and launch from Simonstown (40 km from City centre). It is my opinion that the weather is going to play a big role in your choice of days and in the June period this could
well become your number one problem. My suggestion would be that you make
contact with Chris and let him guide you further with regard to this whole
journey.

Hope this helps.

Very proudly part of the wonderful ((r)) nation of South Africa

Thanks Selwyn. I will check into Chris's operation. Yes, we know that it will be an all day expedition. Actually even with the ones that go out of Hermanus, most seem to offer transportation from Cape Town that leaves early in the morning and returns you to your hotel in the late afternoon or early evening. We don't plan to spend the night elsewhere in order to do this.

June and July are, according to Chris Fallows and Rob Lawrence, the absolute peak months for white shark activity at Seal Island. Rob told me that they sometimes have as many as a dozen different sharks at the boat during those months. However, going out there on any particular day is subject to weather and wave conditions. Leaving yourself the option of only two days means that you would be running a risk of not going at all if the weather or sea conditions are bad on both of those days. When we were in Cape Town in 2003, we ended up having our trip declared a "no go" three days before we finally got out there, which Selwyn was extremely tolerant of (thank you Selwyn!).
One other thing to keep in mind: the water around Seal Island is cold year-round (around 55 degrees). So watch out for that!
Chris

I will definitely have my warm coat and my gloves and hat along! We have decided to go with the White Shark Ecoventures after reading a couple of postings on previous thread (thanks sandi for the the suggestion to search for them). I like that we will see some of the countryside on the way out and it was not clear from the website for African Shark Eco Charters that we would be seeing great whites (which my husband absolutely wanted to see). For the one day trip listed they talk about seeing Makos and Blue Sharks. Anyway, we are all excited about the experience and will just hope for good weather. Since this idea came up after we had already booked all of the flights, we were kind of stuck with just the one day available.

I have heard good things about White Shark Eco Ventures, so I suspect you will be fine with them. Just to clear up any confusion, however, the African Shark Eco-Charters 1-day trips are exclusviely for great whites and nothing else. To see other species requires going further out to sea; Seal Island is home to an estimated 120 adult great white sharks, and that is where Rob & Chris go.

Hmmmm....maybe they need to make things clearer on their website. Anyway, I am sure we will have a great day no matter where we go. Glad to hear that you have heard good things about White Shark Ecoventures also.

We used White Shark Ecoventures for our (him, not me... my mom didn't raise any fools) day cage diving. We were picked up from hotel in CPT and back at the end of the day. We had a brunch on arrival (included in the price).

There were about 12 on the boat including crew. I didn't go in... played photog for everyone on board. The others went down for a minimum two dives. It was a great day.

Well. I guess we can say my mom isn't a fool, but she raised one and married one :-)! She plans to stay on the boat, but my dad and I will probably both go in the water - along with my husband, who I have always said was a fool ;-)! Thanks for the confirmation. Aren't you leaving today? What're you doing still on your computer - get to the plane!!! Have a great trip and I look forward to reading about it when we get back from our trip.

is it the same price if you are watching from the boat vs. in the cage? about how much?

It is the same price regardless of whether you go in the water. Most of theplaces seem to be the same amount - if you are doing transportation from Cape Town it seems to run 1250 Rand. If you don't need transportation it saves 250. What I like is that you also get to see a little of the countryside on the way there and back. And during whale migration season (which unfortunately we are missing) they stop at an overlook to watch for whales off the coast.