Up close and personal with a great white

[Sun Jian]

Up close and personal with a great white
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PROTECTED only by a metal cage, wetsuit-clad tourists in Gansbaai, South Africa get up close and personal with one of the planet's most fearsome predators - the great white shark. The encounter with the shark's gaping jaws and razor sharp teeth leave some with stunned expletives, others with 'whoop' expressions.

The small town of Gansbaai, 160 kilometres from Cape Town, tags itself as the world's great white shark capital,
with an adrenaline-fuelled cage diving industry that is reporting doubled bookings during the month-long World Cup, which starts on June 11.

For around 1,350 rands ($249) operators take tourists out on a short run toward Gansbaai's Dyer Island,
a rocky outcrop heaving with seals, where a watery tuna gunk called “chum” is steadily leaked into the water.


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[Sun Jian]

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The heady scent attracts passing sharks that are then lured to the boat with a seal-shaped decoy and tuna bait.
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Visitors slip on wetsuits and goggles and drop into the cage, where the sharks are enticed to come closer,
often bashing against the metal and even pushing their noses through the gaps in the bars.
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It's an adrenalin rush for tourists, but the booming business is not without controversy – fuelled by fears that luring sharks to humans leads to attacks such as the "dinosaur-sized" great white that witnesses saw tear into a tourist in Cape Town in January.
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[Sun Jian]

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