Shark!

Shark!-

In South Australia I had the rare opportunity to check off a bucket list item by cage diving with great white sharks. As far as I can tell It’s only really offered in 2 parts of the world; South Africa and off of Port Lincoln Australia.

For the last several years I’ve always traveled in style and never worried too much about budget. Doing only a week at a time and always having a good job to get back to it was always 4 star hotel this and degustation menu that. Now with full time travel I need to be more conscious and it didn’t take me long to get myself into the cost cutting budget backpacker mindset. Because of that I was almost turned off from this amazing encounter with the apex ocean predator. From Adelaide I had to take another flight at about $280 round trip, that combined with the lofty $500 for the “no guarantee sighting” 1 day tour made for some second and third guessing. When I set off I told myself to seize opportunities in spite of the otherwise tight budget and this was the first real test of that. My guilt was soon put to rest when within the first 30 minutes on the ground I met someone from Malaysia and a separate guy from Sweden who came all the way to Australia ONLY for the shark dive. 

After Port Lincoln they were turning around to go home. On the 2 hour boat ride to the location I rode shotgun with the captain through the choppy waters as about 75% of our tour group was making use of the barf bags handed out on board. Luckily I avoided the motion sickness but I was only one of a few. A first day staff member also fell victim and it was funny to see her half way through the day trying to pull herself together enough to pass out finger foods with a green hue and glassy eyed look. The cage was a 6 person Cadillac and not the solo style I’ve always seen and was expecting. It was dipped just below the surface of the water which made for a great washing machine type experience of bouncing around and getting tossed from side to side. The dive itself lasted about 40 minutes and it was breathtaking to have such massive monsters circling you the whole time. Every so often one would come up to look you straight in the eye and you could almost hear his thoughts of what the fuck are you doing down here while you ask yourself the same question.