General Information
Location: Simon’s Town, South Africa
Driving Time from Cape Town: 45 minutes
Transfer : Door to door upon request
Peak Season: May- September
Cost: R 3,000
Duration: 3-4 hours at sea
Water Temperature : 14- 18° C
Visibility : 3- 15 meters
Boat: 18 passengers
Cage: Surface cage – 5/6 divers (no experience required)
Securely designed steel cage which floats on the surface and is attached to the boat at all times, with
divers no more than 1 meter below the surface
Dive: Breath hold (scuba upon request)
Dive Includes
- Safety and dive briefing
- Dive gear- wetsuit, booties and mask
- Snacks and refreshments on board
Daily Program
- Meet 6:15- 6:45 am
- Walk to boat and safety briefing
- Leave harbor between 6:30- 7:00am (20 minute boat ride)
- Arrival at Island between 6:50- 7:25 am
- Briefing on Great White hunting behavior
- Observe natural predations
- Tow seal decoy
- 9am anchor at Seal Island
- Drop cage and safety briefing
- Cage dive until 12 pm
- Return to Simon’s Town
Lying just off the coast of Simon’s Town, Seal Island is home to thousands of Cape Fur seals and attract patrolling Great White sharks. It has become a popular destination for film shoots, shark cage diving and observing the unique breaching which occurs around the island.
With this experience, you head out before dawn to witness the amazing power of a Great White shark launching itself out of the water to catch a cape fur seal. If there are no natural predations, then the crew will tow a decoy seal behind the boat to try and entice a breach. Best part about False Bay is that once the predations and the towing are done and you have witnessed the Great Whites natural predation attempts, the crew drops anchor off of Seal Island and combine cage diving into one fantastic trip.
In terms of the breaching trips- these interactions between shark and seal can happen in seconds or chases can last minutes at a time. Please be aware, even though there is a high success rate during the peak months, we are talking about wild animals and so the shark sightings, predatory attempts and breaching do vary from day to day.
This is not to stop you from booking this trip- it is just to be honest. Even in peak season, there may be days when there is no breaching or predatory attempts. Best advice I can offer is to arrive in the morning feeling positive and with some realistic expectations. If this trip is a top bucket list item for you I would highly recommend booking a couple of days to maximize your chances.
In terms of the dive- most boats work on a breath hold method for the cage diving as viability is often limited and the bubbles spook the sharks off to a distance. The interaction time as they swim by the cage is only a few seconds and the Great Whites do approach much closer with this method. (A Hookah system is available on board for qualified divers but would only recommend when visibility is greater than 5 meters). The crew on the boat sees the shark approaching and they will direct the divers in the proper direction to see the shark approaching from underwater.
