South Africa 2013: Swimming with Great Whites

On Thursday, one of my life long dreams came true! I swam with Great White Sharks! The sharks were absolutely fascinating and honestly, HUGE. We saw a total of seven sharks, four being about 4.5 meters in length, and the other three being about 3 meters, which is still HUGE and very intimidating. At first, the sharks would just swim around the cage and circle, but then, about ten minutes into our dive, they started to become more curious. They started biting the cage, and when the dive instructors would bring the chum line near the cage, the shark would attack it, and end up smashing into and biting the cage. It was so intense but I also found myself pushing myself back against the back of the cage so I could keep my hand and feet inside the cage while the shark was smashing up against it-which was actually pretty hard to do! When the sharks were biting and smashing up against the cage while trying to get the chum line, they were literally inches from my face, which was very intimidating and intense! The raw power behind the great white bite was something I had always heard about on shark week (the best week of the year!) but there is nothing that compares to seeing it up close. The teeth and jaw of the shark is absolutely MASSIVE and when the shark bites, its ENTIRE body shakes and you can tell its just one, big, giant muscle putting all its force into the bite. Just CRAZY. At no point was I scared, I was more intimidated and exhilarated, but I will say that keeping my fingers and feet all the way inside the cage was a challenge, so that made me nervous at points, especially when the sharks were inches from my face.
Diving with Great Whites still dosent seem like real life, just because it was so amazing, interesting and because I had waited my whole life to do it. I had the time of my life and I am so, so, SO glad I had an opportunity to swim with Great Whites!