C. megalodon

Yesterday a friend of mine spent me a news article on quiet possibly the best scientific discovery ever, they found a shark in captivity who had impregnated herself and given birth! You know people are always wondering how sharks are still a huge part of the ecosystem and have been a major notch on the food chain for hundreds of years. Maybe this is the answer? Even with over fishing and hunting , these animals have the last f-you since they are showing us the can procreate under any circumstance necessary. Never mind all of that oceanic crisis and serious imbalance that pulling thousands and thousands of sharks out of the water has attributed immensely to (read:Sarcasm , lots of it). I think this discovery has catapulted my interest in sharks way beyond what I could have imagined. I mean even though it was a hammerhead, I bet you great white should be able to do this as well.

I have had a sick obsession with sharks since I was seriously young, yea I loved Barbie’s and I had a puff-a-lump as well as a cabbage patch kid, but my real amazement lay in the deep salty waters. It could have been born from watching Peter Benchley’s raw and awkwardly antimatrated introduction of the fair beast in JAWS, leading to a unnecessary distress while spending time in chlorinated hotel pools hundreds of miles from any actual body of water that might contain any sort of marine life. But to me it was water and when I was involved with the idea of something else being in it with me then fear and fascination was there to stay. More than likely it was defiantly the fear that played a pinnacle aspect of my desperate need to envelop myself within and obtain as much information as i could about these mysterious creatures. Maybe it is a secret kinship that goes beyond my physical understanding and is rooted in my spiritual psyche possibly derived from our geographic roots in the fact that we have both inhabited the shores of Southern Africa. At the slightest mention of shark week I am there. I have watched documentary after documentary on these animals with my fascination established primarily on the Great white shark himself. Other sharks are beautiful and agile but there is something about Carcharodon Carcharias that forces me to continue my deranged mental love affair with something 3x’s my size and the easy ability to eat me whole.


I have visited the Natal sharks board when I was 15 or so and watched them dissect a 10-foot female great white shark that had been caught off the shores that morning. They have these things called shark nets that they clear out every day; they are in place to “protect “ the swimmers. At this point I know too much and I don’t believe I will ever find myself voluntarily in the waters with out a cage. I have an interest in these animails accompanied by a healthy understanding that I am a big fan if all of my limbs as well and would like to keep them in tact.

Which brings me to something I have wanted to write about for along time now. It was the without a doubt the single most amazing thing I have had the bravery and the stupidity to under go. In December I flew from NYC to South Africa, and spent about a week in jo’burg and the midlands relaxing and becoming accustomed to the different time zone. Later in the trip I hoped a plane down to Cape Town to meet my dad. As I stepped of my Kulila flight and decided I was hungry we went to the local what could be compared to Fridays or Ruby Tuesdays and got a bite to eat, serendipitously we ate right next to the beach which lead into the first ocean I had ever been introduced to as a child right before we left South Africa to move to the States. This would prove to be a huge foreshadowing as I ventured not even 24 hours later to another part of the Cape to plunge myself without a second thought into the Atlantic ocean, let me try that again… a chummed Atlantic ocean infested with Great white sharks. And yes I paid and signed my life away to do this.

I had always known that I would go cage diving, but I always imagined it to be my honeymoon. Odd- I know, but think about it this way; I figured any man that would get into shark infested waters with me voluntarily and get up close and a little too personal with a 20 foot sleek encasement of muscles, teeth, and death... then you know that dude who could pull the cohonays to do something like that had to be worth something and the right man for the job of being married to me. It could still happen…you know we ladies have to make sure we made the right decision. And if its putting you mortality in the hands of the deep blue then that’s a pretty good measurement of your conviction for me. Well, I got to live out my life long dream with my dad, well at least for some of the time. Until he got so seasick they had to come and take him along with a few other people off the boat. Now you laugh and think about the poor dad getting ill on the itty-bitty boat. Well let me inform you that it was an itty bitty boat in the middle of a very huge swell on the Atlantic ocean standing stationary for a few hours with the appealing aroma of fish insides being tossed off the side, I have never been prone to sea sickness and took a anti-nausea tablet as a safety precaution but I still found myself on three occasions getting a closer look to the ocean off the side of the boat and “feeding the fishes” as they so politely refer to it. Honestly, that was the only disappointing part, being so sick that the attention slightly dwindled as the trip went on and eventually ended up with me wrapped in a towel sitting in the middle of the back of the boat begging myself to keep anything down and from time to time peaking over to the area where the boat crew would scream shark, I missed being in the ocean for the biggest one as well (not kidding, it was the size of a Cadillac). This is why I have already resolved to go back and do it again, plus my brother is jealous that I went and he didn’t (never mind the fact he want bungee jumping down Victoria falls… apparently my family is was exxx-treme now). So I will venture back to visit my friends soon enough.


Sidestepping the seasickness I was blown away, we didn’t need scuba gear. The sharks are really only there for split seconds so all you have to do is put on a lead weighted belt and hold your breath with goggles. And it is damn cold in the Atlantic even in the summer, we spent most of our time bobbing in the cage chattering our teeth together trying to avoid the dead fish smell. When the boat man would see the shadowy creature approach he would yell “down Left” or “ down right” which meant go down and look respectively either left or right. And they would be the so graceful and for such a slight fraction of time, and I never really felt like I was there. It was almost out of body really, I literally felt like I was watching this huge animal in front of me on a television. Almost as if it didn’t actually exist in real life even though that was plainly absurd because the thing was right in front of me. Even though at one point one of the sharks swam up underneath the cage right where i was standing and a little but too close so natural instinct set in and I swam away as fast as possible unfortunately right over the british guy that was in the cage next to me. It was a surreal experience that I will never ever forget.





Until next time my fearsome predator, my stealthy fishy friend... I will meet you again off the shores of Dyer island and this time I am doubling the sea sickness medicine and in it for the long hall.