Quote:
| Originally Posted by Cussy (did you fly on that budget airline with the comedy safety announcements?) |
Mango is the one I suspect you mean, I flew them from Jo'burg to Durban but I then drove down to Shelly Beach to go diving on Protea Banks for Tiger sharks
Protea Banks and Shelly Beach are a similar dive experience to the Durban area in that the RIBs are beach-launched through swells etc (bloody good fun). I stayed in a small apartment with views over the beach, called "Breakerviews" which is also 2 minutes walk from the launch site and dive centre. I dived with African Dive Adventures who also organised the accommodation (all by email, very easy and friendly) and were professional and a friendly bunch who I would happily recommend and use again. Nitrox is available.
I did a couple of normal dives and a baited dive. The normal diving on Protea Banks tends to involve a negative entry, levelling off at 35m, just above the banks and then a drift (can be quite fast) dive with a fair time at depth (some deco can be racked up if on air) to look for Tigers, Hammerheads etc with a dive lasting 40 minutes or so. The water was 26 degrees in March btw.
The baited dive was different. We went out in the RIB, and then motored around in an area, trailing a bucket of fish-heads, sardines and sardine oil (and their secret ingredient - whale blubber from a sperm whale that washed up dead on the beach some time ago) to wake up anything in the area and then dropped the bucket off on a 10m line with some large floats and waited. After 10 minutes or so the bucket started bouncing about and then got dragged away, like something from jaws!
We hauled the bucket back and could see a large Tiger and the large hole it'd bitten in the bucket. We hauled the bucket to the surface (the shark followed....) and then added a second, undamaged bucket whilst we kitted up. As soon as the bait was back in the water, we entered and then gathered at 10m depth and around 10m from the bucket and waited.
After a while the shark returned and started circling us and the bait, coming to within 50cm or closer (touching distance). Eventually it decided we weren't dangerous and went back to eating the sardines. We stayed in the water with this shark (and others) for around 40 minutes, getting closer to the bait as it got less nervous but always staying together and giving it a large escape space (we were 5 divers) so it was never crowded.
Eventually we had to leave the water as we were feeling chilly but it was an awesome dive.
Apparently this particular shark was known to the dive centre as being one that would regularly eat their buckets as well as the fish!