The best places in the world are wild. There’s a kind of magic that only exists in unpredictability. It’s easy to forget that the sea is one of those places because she often pretends to be tame: impersonating a giant swimming pool, lapping the shore like a coy lake, all seahorses and starfish. Sooner or later she reminds us of her true nature: regurgitating a giant squid from her depths, swallowing a cruise ship, unleashing a tsunami, displaying the sharp fins of a giant shark.
For most of us, our first ‘encounter’ with a great white did not take place in murky water but in our living rooms to a soundtrack that has become synonymous with a shark gliding through the water: da nuh, da nuh, da nuh, da nuh da nuh da nuh. Jaws did not leave viewers with a warm fuzzy feeling. As far as debuts go, great whites made a pretty gruesome one. The reputation stuck like white on rice and for the next few decades great whites struggled to shake their infamy. Biting the occasional swimmer didn’t help their case.
It took a while for our curiosity to sidle up to our fear and ask it to politely shift over so that it could assess the creatures for itself. It was our inquisitive natures that pushed us into the cages where we witnessed the majesty of sharks beneath the surface and our more dramatic selves began to marvel at the sheer power it takes to breach the water in pursuit of prey.
And then there was the antithesis of Jaws: Finding Nemo. Bruce, the Australian great white, spoke of the PR battle great whites have faced when he declared, “I am a nice shark, not a mindless eating machine. If I am to change this image, I must first change myself.”
Perceptions began to slowly change but the truth is that our fear never left. It matured, put on goggles and had a look at great whites with more sympathetic eyes. It was through this new perspective that researchers discovered that great whites aren’t travel shy. They’re not afraid of a little excursion between continents. Studies show that some over-achievers do laps between South Africa and Australia. In this sense, we share our whites with Australia. Now some South Africans may be thinking – thanks but no thanks – Australia can have the whole lot them. I confess, I’ve had my share of those days. The 26th of January 2014 was not one them.
In response to the increase of shark attacks in the last 3 years, Western Australia has began a culling campaign. Any tiger, bull or great white that’s over 3 metres long runs the risk of meeting its end. On 26 January, a tiger shark received four shots to the head. When I watched the footage my first thought was that the brutality belonged in a foregone era. Many Australians agree. Sharon Burden whose son was attacked and killed by a shark in 2011 is one of them. Though I’m not going to enter the intricacies of the debate, I would like to add my voice to the objections and take a moment to salute those valiant Australians who are fighting the good fight.
The theory of Pangaea contends that there was once a ‘supercontinent’ – a jigsaw puzzle of all the continents we know today. Hypothetically, if we were living during such a time and one of our rhinos ventured far, far from home, we wouldn’t keep quiet about our neighbour popping four bullets in its head. Our response shouldn’t be any different when it comes to our sharks. We need to protect our own. This is Africa – rhinos trot on our plains and sharks trawl our coast. Therein lies its beauty. No matter how hard anyone tries, there’s a part of it that will never be tamed. We wouldn’t want it any other way. It is a wild place. All the best places are.
If the idea of getting up close and personal with a great white appeals to you then start planning your trip to Cape Town by contacting one of our expert travel consultants. We have a list of luxury hotels that offer shark cage diving.
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