Great White Sharks

I woke up at 5am to drive from Cape Town to Gaansbai to go out on a boat to nearby Shark Alley.

The chances of seeing great white sharks in the area are almost certain if you stay out on a boat long enough with a pretty heavy piece of fresh tuna floating in the water as bait.

Feeding the sharks is strictly forbidden, but tuna soon looses its attraction if it's left floating in the cold salty ocean for a couple of hours, so plenty is needed.

Although most people on the boat had paid for a "cage-diving" trip, cloudy, drizzly weather meant very few were actually prepared to get into the cold water.

The sharks could have made an appearance after five minutes, and I'm sure they do some days, but we waited a couple of hours before seeing a great white.

In the meantime, some people fished overboard and this small shark (not a great white, but some other kind) took someone's bait and got pulled onboard to raise our dampened spirits.

As promised, we did all get good surface views of great white sharks after waiting long enough.

I've put together some video clips I took to make the short movie below.
(Best if you've got broadband connection.)

It's hardly up to National Geographic standards, but it's the best photo I got.

(On the subject, the BBC's latest big-budget series, Planet Earth(Episdode 1), has amazing footage of a huge great white breaching the water to catch a sealion not too far from here.)