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OJ's Shark Tale

19th March 2006 Olivia Jones

This was taken soon after dropping off the boat. I made damn sure my arms were tucked in and turning around at moments like this with a tiger shark (left) and black tip shark approaching I felt pretty scared.

"Eye of the Tiger" I cannot tell you what a privilege it was to be in the water alongside a big guy like this observing his eyes roll back while eating it blew any documentary footage I have seen right out of the water. Incidentally just after this photo was taken his tail thrashed out the water and came crashing down on my head resulting in a pretty serious headache. The guys on the boat were laughing about it saying how no one else except them would believe my story about it. (Thank goodness Mark had his camera)

This shot looks superimposed; I am the one doing doggy paddle sneaking towards him.

This shot should put it in perspective a lot of you know how big I am (about six foot) — so this is no small shark and it wasn't even the biggest one there.

My 'favouritest' picture in the whole world! Snapped after going up to stroke her.

Me approaching the black tip which ended up being a bit too frisky for our liking.

Friday (March 10) is a day I won't forget in a hurry — a dive with a difference ended up changing my opinion about one of our most feared ocean companions — sharks.

I am eternally amazed by the way people are so shocked when we have shark sightings while surfing. Sharks live in the sea. We choose to enter their environment on a daily basis so why not get to know them a little better because after all we only really fear the things we don't understand.

I hope that by sharing my experience with you (on Kelly's recommendation) that it will either inspire you to try it too one day or at least shift your mindset slightly.

As a bodyboarder/ surfer for many years I have always harboured a deep rooted fear of sharks and in fact as a grom one of my biggest fantasies was to take huge shark nets that reached the seabed and trawl through all of the globe's oceans to fish out these evil predators. I dreamt of surfing in shark-free waters, I thought about them often, I never wanted to see what lurked beneath me and I used to get all worked up when people tried to defend these "man-eaters".

Unfortunately this widespread attitude of hatred is exacerbated (and often justified) by the fact that most of us have friends or know people that have been seriously injured, lost limbs or even died in attacks.

Anyway now that I have painted an accurate picture of how I used to feel about the "indiscriminate killers" I will tell you about my day just south of Aliwal Shoal (Umkomaas, KZN south coast).

As some of you may already know for the past year and a half I have been obsessed with diving and had heard about some "crazy man" on the shoal who not only loves tiger sharks but tickles and strokes them, even whilst free diving.

This turned out to be world renowned shark expert Mark Addison, who has pioneered research and dive sites for over 15 years and is responsible for most of the spectacular SA shark sequences you see on BBC and Discovery. Together with his amazing wife Gail (who also loves these beasties and dives with them regularly) he has formed a company called Blue Wilderness www.bluewilderness.co.za They are currently doing extensive research on tiger sharks by tagging them and tracking them to work out what their movements are like all your round and trust me this kind of information will benefit all of us.

The Addisons are passionate about sharks and have named most of the resident sharks like "Sabrina" and "Barbara-Anne". For many years they mainly accommodated film crews or researchers but now they are opening the shark diving experience to members of the public. Forget cage diving (which they describe as a reverse zoo), these guys have an opportunity for you to enjoy snorkelling or SCUBA diving with them — which is something most of us would never had assumed was possible.

The dive is a baited drift dive which means that they attract the resident sharks by using a drum-line (buoy on the surface with a rope that has fish tied to it and a steel drum with bait 5-metres underwater). The line gets pulled with the current and you follow watching all the sharks as you drift.

The dive briefing consisted of a few handy hints like: "Don't try this at home but if the tigers bump you just take their nose and push them down with your hands!"

When we reached the dive site I went cold when we spotted a massive tiger shark thrashing around in a frenzy of sorts on the surface and I began to question whether or not I was doing the right thing. As we dropped down (between 5 to 8-metres) in SCUBA gear I was totally overwhelmed by the experience - we were surrounded by ten circling sharks (mostly tiger sharks, a few black tips and one Zambezi) which was waaaaay more dramatic than any Jaws-type footage I'd ever seen on TV??!!! It was totally surreal and I kept having to remind myself that I wanted to be there and kept bracing myself for the worst.

After a terrifying 30-minutes of feeling edgy, turning 360 degrees and catching big sharks sneaking up on me I eventually managed to calm myself down (to a mild panic) because we had been told not to make any sudden movements. I didn't warm to the black tip sharks as much as I did to the tigers — the black tips were a lot quicker and appeared to be more aggressive. Due to it being a shallow dive I lasted on SCUBA for an hour and a half and then decided to give snorkelling with them a bash.

Far from being man-eating killers as I had imagined I began to realise that they are selective predators (in spite of tigers — reputation of guzzling anything), they had every opportunity imaginable to feast on us but they simply weren't interested. This spun me out more than anything, there we were swimming alongside really big sharks and they could not have cared less.

It took my breath away being privileged enough to be so close to these majestic, powerful, exquisite creatures. I swam alongside some of them and had the opportunity to stroke them and believe it or not you can even hold onto their dorsal fins! The best part is that they seem to enjoy it and when they have had enough they just motor off at pace. I was absolutely entranced by them and could not believe that it actually happened. As a regular ocean user it totally changed my perception of sharks.

I am not saying that sharks are harmless, we all know what they are capable of and I am also not commenting on the Cape Town Great White issue, this article is about a personal experience that I had in KZN. One thing I do know is that the Addisons have even free dived with Great Whites in KZN without incident.

I hope that I have planted a seed for you to think about. There is no need to walk on water getting to shore when there is a shark sighting, by all means catch the next wave in but don't kick or splash wildly. Remind yourself that our playground is their home and treat them with the respect and admiration that they deserve.

My challenge to you is to learn more about sharks — behaviour whether it means a trip to the Natal Sharksboard, searching the net, getting a library book or diving with them.

"Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers,
But to be fearless in facing them."
(Tagore — Indian Poet)

Mark Addison took photos so you can see how incredible it was.

If you are keen to find out more about the research or shark dives offered by the Addisons you can email me [email protected] and I will pass on your queries otherwise check out their website: www.bluewilderness.co.za

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