I and my dive buddy went diving at Aliwal Shoal (South Africa), early Friday morning.
Anyway long story short is that after changing the dive site due to visibility concerns, we eventually dropped down onto a dive site called
Cathedral. It's apparently well known for the Ragged tooth sharks that arrive there for breeding.
It was my first "proper" encounter with sharks. I missed out on them when diving off Koh Tao at Champon Pinnacle and my previous dive at Aliwal.
But as we dropped down to 24m the first thing I saw was a Raggie swimming along the bottom before veering off into the haze. Soon enough though, we were all sitting at Cathedral surrounded by Raggies. I had one swim right underneath me. Another one that swam along side me so that I actually looked it in the eye..... I didn't do anything differently than I usually do on a dive. Hands were in and everything was smooth and slow.
It was a great first experience with sharks and with the sardine run hopefully on it's way, hopefully not the last!
A bonus on this dive, before and after the dive was getting the opportunity to do some whale watching. Humpback whales in this case. We had them swimming under the boat, breaching and showing us there tails as they dove.
All in all a magic day above and below the sea.
A good "debunking" film series to watch are
Jean-Michel Cousteau's "Sharks: At Risk" and "America’s Underwater Treasures". It was amazing to watch him interact with a Great White shark and actually catch a ride on it's dorsal fin! Although amazing, even he says, it was the first and last time he'll dive like that with a great white.
Sharks are not there to be feared but should definitely be respected!