Swimming with Sharks, literally - 6 August 2008

One of the great(?) things about this trip is that it gives me time to reflect. I've been thinking about it, and I think the seed for this trip was planted over a decade ago. Back then I was working at Texas Instruments and one of my colleagues took a year off to follow his wife to Australia for her job.

When we were catching up after their return, he talked about how wonderful it was and how little things had changed back home while he was gone. He also talked about some crazy adventure involving boats and salt-water crocodiles, which leads us to today's story.

Lonely planet mentions that you can go shark diving in South Africa. Being a conservative soul at heart, it's not something I'd seriously considered. Of course Jennifer thinks it's a wonderful idea, so off we go at 5 am this morning to go shark diving.

Those of you who are eco-concious probably have some of the same doubts and concerns that we did. "Isn't this wrong? Should we be teaching sharks to associate humans with food?" That lasts until the first shark shows up and then it's a race to see who can get in the water first.

A few clarifications are in order, though. You're not really diving. They put you in a cage by the side of the boat, and when they see a shark they yell "down", and the direction that you should look. Also, seeing a shark isn't left to chance - they're chumming the water the whole time and using pieces of tuna to entice them closer. Oh, and one other thing, it's winter here and the water is cold, 15 degrees celsius (~ 60 degrees fahrenheit).

All of that, though, is trumped by this:



And since my spiffy new camera is waterproof, this:



All in all, I highly recommend the experience.