Great Whites Anyone?

October 4, 2010

Today I swam with the largest sharks in the ocean- Great Whites.  The company we went through, Great White Shark Diving, arranged to have drivers pick us up from our port and take us to Gansbaai for our dive.  The drive was 2 hours away but allowed us to see a different part of South Africa than Cape Town.  I really enjoy Cape Town but it is so modernized and city-like that I don’t really feel as if I am actually in Africa.  Imagine you are in San Francisco or Seattle, or even Long Beach by the aquarium and that is what Cape Town is like.  Absolutely beautiful, but it is its own world.  Our drive showed us the actual reality- townships.  I did not really understand what exactly townships were before coming to South Africa, but the best way to envision them are tin huts that are crammed together.  They looked identical to the district for the aliens in District 9 (and no I am not exaggerating at all).  Ghana is a very poor country and I did see a lot of poverty, but the poverty in these townships was incomparable.  The disparity between rich and poor in South Africa is the highest in the entire world with a gini coefficient of .65 (again a 1 means the country is totally unequal).  Although there are many wealthy people in this particular country, the poverty is unfathomable.  When passing by the townships I could not and still cannot comprehend the fact that it was actually real and people actually have a life in there.  You would hope that these townships would be small and just a few people live in them… but that is definitely not the case.  When looking at them you could not even see how far back they went because it was and is so big.  In just one hour we passed by 4 of these huge, poverty stricken, townships and those are just ones that are off the main highway.  Driving through this area, on our way to Gansbaai, was only a small part of South Africa and the poverty that lies within.  For the majority of South Africa, poverty is everywhere and hearing different students stories is so crazy to know that it really is spread throughout the country.  It’s shocking and I really don’t know how to explain it that well.  As we got closer to our destination, the houses began to get a lot nicer, probably similar to an average home in the United States (not a huge mansion but a nice sized home).  However, something seemed to be different.  There were bars on the windows and the houses seemed to be in lock down.  We later learned from some friends we met in Kruger in the next few days that people in nicer areas have to have bars on their windows and actually have a lockdown area instead the house that separates the sleeping quarters from the rest of the house.  Because robberies are so common there (like 3 times a month for some), people are always prepared.   
        After such a bizarre drive, we finally arrived to the shark diving site.  It was pretty chilly outside and kind of rainy, but we were still allowed to go out.  The ride was very rocky and we were all bundled up as much as possible.  When we stopped the engines our captain began making his special chum and through a huge half of a tuna on a hook into the water to attract the sharks.  It didn’t take long until we say our first great white. It was huge! He had some of us put wetsuits on, getting ready for us to go in the cage and some of my friends decided we would be part of the first 6 to go in.  But our luck didn’t last for long and sharks were nowhere to be seen for some time.  He decided to move the boat and find a better spot so all of us in our wetsuits sat around for a bit (I actually fell asleep…) I woke with a jolt when I heard our captain yelling for us to get it.  We literally grabbed the weight belts and jumped right into the cage where you could see different great whites ripping a part the tuna less than a foot away from your face! It was so crazy and surreal! Animals that I have only seen on TV were inches from my face.  Although it was hard to ignore the combination of the water temperature, the wind chill and the swell, the sharks were quite a sight. We stayed out there for a few hours, watching these enormous creatures swim around the boat until we finally called it quits and went back to shore.  Shark diving was such a wild experience and actually not scary at all.  I really enjoyed it and highly recommend it to anyone who has the chance to do it. I thought I would be really nervous but I have actually realized on this trip that you can’t hold your self back and when you know an amazing opportunity lies ahead you have to seize the moment and go for it. I mean you probably wont find me bungee jumping in China (since I didn’t do it in South Africa), but there are other things that I have just stepped a little out of my normal comfort zone and did it, which I so far haven’t regretted.  I’m learning a lot about myself on this journey around the world and although shark diving isn’t a life changing experience, it still has enabled me to figure myself out a little more.