This morning was an early start, however not quite as early as originally planned. The plan was at first to get to Gansbaai at 7am, which would've meant leaving the hostel by 6am, which isn't my idea of fun. At all. But because of some mix up with our bookings, we were on the 11am trip out, which meant a bit more of a lie in and a later start. And also breakfast. So that all worked out well.

After hitting the coastal road we made our way to Gansbaai, which was about 45 minutes away, and 'checked into' the offices of Shark Diving Unlimited, where we started off with a late breakfast / early lunch, watched some shark documentary and then had our introduction talk and briefing. After that, it was time to jump on board the boat and head out to the dive spot and dive with the sharkies.

The whole shark diving experience was slightly different to what I originally expected. I had envisioned it to be a bit more aquarium like, with sightings of passing sharks in front of the cage, all very tranquil and relaxing. And that's exactly how it wasn't.

The whole process is highly regulated, including limiting the number of shark diving licenses they issue as well controlling the feeding process. In fact they don't actually feed the sharks, they chum the water. Chum is a combination of minced Tuna and Sardines with fish oil, this is mixed with sea water, then gradually thrown in the sea to create a chum slick. The chum slick represents a carcass of a dead Tuna and the sharks enter a scavenging mode.

At any one time, there are about 8-9 in the cage, ready to drop under water on the command of the instructor on board. Once the tuna heads get thrown in and a shark spotted, the heads on the end of the line are dragged back towards the boat and the command is shouted for us at duck under water, in the attempt to spot the shark swimming across the cage in front of us.

I was in the first group in the cage, and after ages in the water, we hadn't seen anything, so out we came. Then no sooner had the next group gotten in, all the action picked up. We got some good views from standing in the boat, but would've been better from under the water. After the second group had had their turn, we got back in the water in the hope we might be lucky the second time round and surprise, surprise... the action stopped.

Just as he said there's not much action and gives us 10 more minutes, the luck turned for us, and a decent size Great White took some interest in the tuna heads, breached just in front of us and grabbed the buoy and tuna heads and refused to let it go. He swam down below us, pulling and thrashing around at the line, trying to get it free, all while shaking the cage and the boat. To the point he was properly rattling the cage with us all well confused as to where he was and what exactly was going on. It was so quick, frantic and sudden - but we really got to experience some of the strength of one of these magnificent animals. After that, we called it a day and headed back to the shore, satisfied enough with our diving experience.

After the drive back to Cape Town, Paul came round to ours, we grabbed a beer at home, watched a bit of the cricket test of TV, then headed out to Neighbourhood on Long Street and then onto Caprice out at Camps Bay - quite a day of it!