Posted by sylvertip on June 05, 2001 at 16:47:08:
In Reply to: Re: GREAT WHITE CAGE DIVE - DON'T!! posted by John Walker on June 05, 2001 at 14:34:10:
well, a few years ago, before I knew better, I did the great white shark cage thing in South Africa. Funny part of the story is I had to go twice to actually get caged. First time we went to "one of the sharkiest places on earth", Dyer Island, where Discovery Channel gets most of their footage. We tried for 7 days. No luck.
Went back the next year and did get caged. Got to admit it was a major adrenaline buzz. Would I do it again? Depends. Depends on a lot of things. But I learned a whole lot about those animals and have a huge respect for them.
btw - none of the shark pictures I've put on the site (sylvertip) were taken when there was food in the water. But the good photos I have are from an area where sharks are used to being fed and they'd come up close and personal to see if we had food. Yes, within 5 ft. I know cause my camera is manual focus.
Looked like divers had trained the sharks to associate divers in a location with food. Lucky for us in So Cal this was in Burma/Myanmar. The area is so far removed from land that there's no real danger for swimmers. The food association behavior seemed very localized. Not only to a reef, but to a specific 30 ft area. Talk about spooky though, as soon as the group got to the "feeding area" about 6 sharks came out of "no where".
A marine biologist might be able to explain it better. Thought it was real interesting.