What an entirely unbelievable experience!  On Friday I had the privilege of diving with the most famous fish in the sea – the great white shark!  Gansbaai, three hours south of Cape Town, is arguably the great white shark diving capital of the world.  And it wouldn’t take much arguing.  Discovery Channel, Nat Geo, BBC’s Planet Earth – they all film their white shark footage there!  And with good reason – I saw FIFTEEN white sharks!  I was completely floored when I caught a glimpse of the first one in the water.  It’s been my dream to see one!  They’re the most incredible animals I’ve ever seen – despite their ferocious appearance they’re actually stunningly graceful.  I got tons of great footage in slow motion with my Light & Motion housing, and when you see their actions slowed down it adds a whole new depth to their appearance and the way they move.  I have to say it was over entirely too quickly – even though I was out on the boat for upwards of six hours!

What was just as great, if not better to see than the sharks themselves, was the way ecotourism functions in Gansbaai.  Ecotourism promises a lot of results – benefits to the environment and to communities associated with whatever the ‘eco’ is – but it seems that as often than not, it doesn’t deliver.  In fact, many times the only party that ‘ecotourism’ benefits is the tour operators themselves!  In Gansbaai, however, ecotourism is everything you could ever hope it to be!  I went diving with Marine Dynamics, one of the two dive operators out of The Great White House.  Closely associated with The Great White House is the Dyer Island Conservation Trust (DICT).  In fact, the Trust is funded entirely by charitable donations from several dive operations in Gansbaai – it’s independent of any governmental support.  DICT is involved in everything from penguin rehabilitation and artificial nest creation, to white shark research, to recycling and educational programs in the local communities, and local craftsmen and -women sell their souvenirs in the dive centers gift shop.  Every boat that goes out with tourists from The Great White House to dive with the white sharks has a marine biologist on board who is both responsible for educating the divers and also for collecting valuable data on the sharks that do come to the boat.  The data collection and resulting research is funded directly by the dive operators and DICT, establishing a perfect harmony between ecotourism, research and conservation!  Not to mention the fact that it would be impossible to afford to send out three boats daily simply to collect data!  The tourism industry funds both the Conservation Trust’s work and the shark research which results in better management and protection of the white sharks, along with a number of other conservation and education initiatives.  The situation in Gansbaai is the perfect example of how ecotourism should work – something I don’t think I’ve ever seen quite to this extent!

I had an excursion to Langebaan this weekend as well to help some UCT researchers collect sand sharks for a population study.  I’ll post some photos from that in my next entry!  Right now I’m in Durban and tomorrow I’ll be meeting up with the famous Michael Aw to head to Aliwal Shoal for some tiger shark diving before heading south to Mboyti for the sardine run!  I’m editing my Cape Town video and it’s getting close, so you shouldn’t have to wait long now to see the white shark footage!