FEATURE
Text and images by Fiona Ayerst
Free diving with
Great White sharks:
Running the Gauntlet
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W
hen I mentioned to some friends that I had been employed as the still images photographer for a German-French Television series Of Sharks and Man there were congratulations all round. Some enquired further and when I told them that the main character, local free diver Graeme Duane, would be on breathhold with Great White sharks there was an audible intake of breath – “is he mad?” they asked. The most adventurous of them laughed nervously when he heard that underwater videographer, Charles Maxwell, and myself would both be filming the action from outside the relative safety of a cage. So in June 2007, I found myself in Gansbaai, sitting at the back of a boat, on full scuba but, quite literally, breathless. I had immersed just the tips of my fins in the icy Atlantic waters. Then it hit me while I sat there numbly considering what I had undertaken. I was going to flounder around seal-like, outside of a cage, with three confirmed Great White sharks in the vicinity of the boat. I realised that the chilly 14oC seal-filled waters off Dyer Island in Gansbaai did not cause my breathlessness! I tried to forget the scoffs and warnings and slipped into the water as gently as I could. This is hard to do in full scuba but I think it was my neatest entry ever! I had taken my cue from the safety diver and crew who were on watch to make sure it was safe for me to swim 15m from the boat, through the water and into a the gaping mouth of a cage with its door wide open for access. The inimitable Mr Maxwell had already made the swim safely through this “baptism I was going to flounder around sealof fire” and I realised like, outside of a cage, with three there was no going confirmed Great White sharks in the back. As I dunked vicinity of the boat. my head beneath the choppy waves to run the gauntlet I scanned the vicinity looking for movement. Call me crazy but I was finding it hard to listen to someone standing on a boat shouting, “ the coast is clear – get in and get there - QUICK”. Underwater the visibility looked good at a clean 20m. It had looked clean from the boat too but I was still pleasantly relieved. In my experience water that looks clean from the surface can in fact turn out to be quite murky on a horizontal plane once you are in it. I could just make out the lurking presence of one Great White shark on the far side of the boat. The first panicked thoughts started to rush through my head - where were the other two sharks? I had seen their massive streamlined bodies slinking around the boat, as they smelled the chum. I sank to 4m deep and started to make my way very fast across the great divide. The plan was that I would slide stealthily into the cage next to Charles. When we were sure that all conditions were correct for us to get out, we would unhinge the door and join Graeme and the sharks in open water. As I swam between the boat and the seal-festooned side of Dyer Island my consciousness was being flooded. Foremost were thoughts like “Aren’t seals the preferred food of Great Whites?” and “I wonder if I look like a seal in this wetsuit?”. I reached the cage in one breath and flung myself in, bashing Charles hard on the head with my cylinder. Could it count as free diving I wondered, if you have a fully functional demand valve and air and yet swim on one
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breath for 15m? Once inside the cage I felt much calmer. I noticed that there was a swell running and together with the choppy surface conditions Charles and I were being washed into each other regularly. Charles’ camera is bigger than mine and it hurt. I was grateful to see Graeme enter the water. I knew that this would get my fearless co-conspirator out into the open water quickly and I could languish in the cage by myself for a while. I was correct. As two of the sharks came As two of the sharks came into view Charles opened the cage into view Charles opened window and climbed out in hot purthe cage window and suit of Graeme. Together they tried climbed out. to entice two Great White sharks closer. One of them, circling at 4 to 5m away, was close enough already. I could already see its teeth! With Charles out of my space I relaxed, shivering with anticipation. I had some time to think more carefully about the situation I was in. I have done many hundreds of dives with different sharks over the past five years. In fact, my area of expertise in photography has deflected by default towards sharks. I have dived outside of a cage with others of the renowned “big five” of man-eaters. I have stroked Tiger sharks and had three Zambezis peer lasciviously at me through my camera dome port from 1m away. I have been in the water on my own free diving off Cape Point, swimming sans bubbles, with Blue sharks weaving around
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my legs and willing the biggest Mako possible to shoot out of the deep blue yonder. So why, I had to ask myself, did I have this freaked-out fear of being outside of a cage with three calm Great White sharks? It could have been the incredibly bad publicity that the Great White has received over the years. My earliest recollection was the horrifying JAWS movies that I was exposed to during a gullible childhood. Media has too often depicted this particular shark as a monster waiting to tear anything it sees to shreds with gnashing massive teeth. There’s always loads of blood ‘n guts flying around; missing limbs; screams of agony and at least five minutes of horror as the hapless victim realises he/she is going to be eaten alive and then gets dragged to the bottom in a cloud of red. But still I felt I was older and wiser than this. There had to be more to my fear. I had dived with so many different sharks since my childhood. During these dives I was never in a cage. The day before our swim we had spent a glorious day out at sea gathering footage of flying sharks. These sharks actually propel their entire bodies out The force and power with which of the water these fish thrust out of the water (they can is phenomenal and enough to weigh two send a shiver of intense fear tons!) when through even the bravest of hearts.
FEATURE A seasoned Kenyan fisherman on Kilifi Creek. attacking prey. The water was clean and we had been that was all it was. I had had no facts whatsoever. I felt able to see the sharks’ faces, jaws agape at about 10m as embarrassed and cowardly and scanned the Internet over they hurtled themselves up from the bottom. The force and over- it had to be there! I soon realised that even if it and power with which these fish thrust out of the water is was there - this was one incident that may have occurred phenomenal and enough to send a shiver of intense fear up to twenty years ago and the sheer number of divers through even the bravest of hearts. I was relieved to hear that have been in the water since then is incalculable, but Graeme state categorically in words must be legion. My fear was beyond all that cannot be repeated here – that reason. there was no way he was getting in Much later it was still bothering me The bad media that this shark the water that day! that I could not find information about has been given is, in my opinion, totally unjustified. Back in my cage I wondered if my this attack that had scared me so much. fear could possibly stem from my I started to scan some scientific journals, vivid recollection of the only recorded as the Internet had no information to fatal Great White attack on a scuba diver whilst she was make me feel better. Eventually in a biology book on Great trying to enter a boat near Dyer Island. Wasn’t she bitten White sharks I saw a list noting that a woman with the surclean in half? Ouch. name Price was bitten on the thigh in Mossel Bay in 1990. Later, when I searched the Internet to verify this attack This must have been the one. It was the attack that I knew that I had so vividly recalled in the cage, I could find nothnothing about, but which caused such unwarranted fear. ing at all to suggest that my memory had served me corInterestingly enough, the same book notes that one rectly. I bashfully realised in the relative safety of my study person, a spear fisherman, also died from a Great White that my fear was unwarranted. All I had actually had was attack at Sodwana Bay in 1978. I dive up to fifty dives a an extremely vague recollection of something that could year there and have done for the past ten years. I didn’t have possibly happened to one person a long time ago and know this information and so I have never felt any fear at
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all when diving the reefs of Sodwana. There must be some truth in the phrase “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing”! The bad media that this shark has been given is, in my opinion, totally unjustified. Imagine my horror when sitting comfortably in my study I read the following statistics. Worldwide many more people die annually from falling off chairs than shark attacks. I stood up from my chair quickly, glancing askance at its legs. I made one quick and final attempt at recovering my belief in my adventurous nature by recalling that there was a paramedic dressed in bright red on board our boat in Gansbaai at all times. This also did not help me as, in fact, the paramedic had been fast asleep relaxing unperturbed in the boat cabin for the entire day. Back in the cage - I wish I could have been calm and relaxed as I considered my next move out of the cage and into the clean green water. The movements of the sharks
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FEATURE did not inspire panic. I had been watching them intently. All three of them were majestically interacting with each other and with the two men in front of me. Even the safety diver floating on the surface with a spear gun was being ignored. There was definitely a “pecking-order” adhered to impeccably by the three sharks. They simply glided peacefully and inquisitively through the water keeping a modest distance between themselves, each other and the people. I could see that Graeme wanted them to come closer. I decided to make my move and squeezed myself out of the smallest crack I could make in the window. I willed myself as hard as I could but I just could not let go of the cage. I put it down to the fact that my power inflator hose was disconnected due to a malfunction. I was hugely over-weighted to cater for the very choppy conditions and the shallow refuge cage. I was concerned that I would sink like a stone to the bottom and remain there like a statue forever to be scrutinised by hungrily circling sharks. I recalled a Great White shark diving expert I wish I could have been calm having told me that these gigantic fish do and relaxed as I considered my not like you to be under them - or did he next move out of the cage and say above them? I couldn’t recall in that mointo the clean green water. ment but I didn’t want to find out. I needn’t have put myself through such anguish. The sharks ignored me completely. Two of them were very interested in Graeme as he was swimming in their circling path. I was incredulous at how calm and relaxed the scene and everything within it was. I started to wish that my power inflator hose worked as I actually felt like swimming over to join the peaceful tableaux unfolding in front of me. I continued to stay outside the cage, holding on – but now not with white knuckles – rather just with a light touch, sufficient to stop me sinking to the bottom. After what seemed like a few seconds our time with these kings of the ocean was over. It was over too soon. It is not everyday that one gets an invitation to scuba dive outside of a cage with Great White sharks. I had been enriched. By the way, please do not try this at home! It is always important to be well versed on the etiquette of diving with sharks and to attempt it only with the assistance of experts. It is also illegal to free dive with Great White sharks that have been chummed unless you have a permit from Marine and Coastal Management. S
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