Gnashing of Teeth

While we were in Cape Town, we thought that we would find something interesting to do. Being the lunatics that we are, we decided to go shark cage diving. On the scheduled day, we got up and took a taxi to the dock. We waited around for a while until the boat showed up. We got on with some other people and set sail after a short safety talk. On the way, we saw some whales and watched a pod of dolphins swim next to the boat and periodically jump into the air. We also stopped to look at Seal Island, which was so covered in seals that you couldn't tell they were there until you got super close. The seals made "baa" noises like sheep and smelled nasty. Eventually, we got to the diving spot and they dropped the cage. It wasn't really shark "diving" so much because you didn't wear a diving thing, just a wetsuit and goggles. The cage floated, with about a foot of it sticking over the water. You just hung on the top bars with your head out of the water until a spotter yelled "shark, left!" and you would stick your head underwater for a while and look where the spotter told you to. They gave us our wetsuits and started chumming (baiting) the water. We hung around for an hour or so with no luck because a nearby boat had found a shark and the shark was perfectly happy where it was and felt no need to visit us. Eventually, the captain got on the radio and told the other captain to be nice and share the shark. After a while, the shark came over and we got in the cage and watched it for a while. There were also some seals, who seemed to be showing off with loopty-loops and barrel rolls. The shark was a massive bronze whaler, about 8 1/2 feet long, which gets a lot bigger when it's up close. It was kind of scary sometimes because the shark would come up close and look at you like it was debating what part to eat first, and then you would realize that your foot was sticking out of the cage and you hadn't realized it. We went in two groups of five, with our family and one stranger in the first group. Unfortunately for the other group, by the time their turn rolled around, the shark had been eating for about an hour and a half, was not hungry, and therefore saw no reason to stick around. Toward the end of their turn, another shark came along, but we had to leave because the tour was almost over. We saw more dolphins and seals on the way back, along with a whale. It was a fun experience, and I got a cool shirt :)