SHARK CAGE DIVING

Heeeey Big Fella!

Just off the coast of Gaansbai, South Africa sits an island that hosts approximately 35000 beleaguered cape seals.

And surrounding this island, in the ridiculously cold waters of the Atlantic Ocean – or the Indian Ocean, depending on who you ask – are an unknown number of the world’s greatest predators. Dauntingly known as SHARK ALLEY (I’VE YET TO COME ACROSS TWO WORDS THAT DESERVE CAPSLOCK MORE THAN THOSE), this area consequently hosts an increasingly popular tourist activity in which idiots like you or I can pay good money to be removed from a perfectly good boat and into the house of this subject of many a nightmare, the GREAT WHITE SHARK (ALSO A DESERVED CAPS LOCK) (and that shudder you just felt was Mama Fin… shuddering)..

People more erudite (I learned this word, meaning, “educated” or “learned”, from Dilton Doiley in an Archie comic – time well spent) than I validly suggest that diving with GREAT WHITE SHARKS disrupts the natural order and potentially contributes to an increased number of shark attacks on humans. This bothersome little concern is based on the hypothesis that the practices used to attract GREAT WHITE SHARKS to boats may teach them to associate humans with food.

Not wanting to contribute to the evisceration of innocent swimmers by GREAT WHITE SHARKS, I consulted the interweb for opinions, including that of a potentially legendary ship captain who refers to himself as “The Sharkman”, a name that obviously provides him with equal credibility to “scientists”. Several valid points were made. First, it is relatively unknown that sharks of all kinds are currently being wiped off the face of the earth. Why? Mostly to meet the demand out of China for shark fins, which are then boiled into a reportedly terrible soup so that the consumers of said soup can show others how rich, powerful and virile they are. (I’m not even making that up). This has mostly gone ignored in the West due to our innate fear of sharks and well-founded confusion over why the hell Chinese people eat soup that tastes like garbage because they are rich, not because they are poor. As a result, it could easily be argued that the more people who go shark cage diving, the more people there are that realize that these are among the world’s most incredible creatures, that they are (mostly) not dangerous to humans and that they must be conserved.

Second, I was comforted to learn that the sharks are never actually fed by the diving boats, only drawn closer by the scent of the chum (a.k.a. disgusting fish heads mashed up in a garbage bin at the back of the boat by a champ who smiles for 5 hours straight despite having one of the world's worst jobs)

, fake seals put near the boat, and a big fish attached to a rope that is always pulled away from them at the last moment. If anything, in my admittedly confused calculus, wouldn’t this teach the shark to associate humans with not being fed?

After all this careful research, just before I came to South Africa there was a breathless news report of a man who was plucked out of waist-deep water by what was described as “a dinosaur-sized shark” on an eyewitness’s Twitter account. Ignoring the fact that describing the shark as “dinosaur-sized” could simply mean it was a normal-sized or even under-sized shark, upon hearing about this story I was much more concerned about human obsession with ridiculous social media such as Twitter than I was about being eaten whole by a shark, leaving behind only my bathing suit (which was, incidentally, the case in the above incident). The day I watch a shark consume a human-being, leaving behind only board shorts and a cloud of blood, and believe that the best course of action is to run home to my computer and twat on my Twitter account about it, is the day I should be euthanized.

Anyhoo, there is no clear indication that either of the camps are correct in denouncing or embracing shark cage diving. It is possible that shark attacks have increased or that the practice of shark cage diving affects them in some other way, but nobody really knows. More importantly, what is clear is that shark attacks on humans are blown WAY out of proportion. It is incredibly, incredibly rare for a GREAT WHITE SHARK to attack a human. Statistics show that an average of five people worldwide are killed in shark attacks each year, and that an average of approximately sixty to seventy are injured (or maimed…I don’t like that word). You are more likely to be killed or maimed by the following:

-Vending machines

-Toasters (Approximately 750 ppl die worldwide from freak toaster incidents each year)

-Lost airplane parts that fall out of the sky

-Tripping over your cat

You get the picture. I am of course aware of the shortcomings of relying on the above statistics. First and foremost, pointing out that a person is incredibly unlikely to be devoured by a shark doesn’t assuage fears, as people are still terrified that they may happen to look like a seal for all they know and thus will perish in unfamiliar surroundings at the teeth of a really goddamn big fish. And second, despite the stats, people aren’t scared of housecats (although maybe they should be) – cats are just (incredibly useless) hunks of matter that sometimes cause people to trip and die. They (probably) don’t trip you on purpose and then eat you. And death by vending machine, well that’s just natural selection. BUT, give the GREAT WHITE SHARKS a break; we don’t taste good to them, so they almost always spit us out (except for the delicious man referred to above) and it’s not their fault we sometimes look like seals when we ride surfboards.

ANYWAYS, with all of that in mind, when you have the chance to swim with big fucking sharks, you swim with big fucking sharks

So, along with visiting Brother-in-law Alex and friend-from-school Alex, we set off at 6AM with expectations of Planet Earth-style demolitions of jumping seals or a few lost limbs. I had also heard that sharks sometimes devour seagulls as they jump out of the water, only to spit them out because they taste so terrible. If presented with that alternative, I would have been pretty happy.

The sea was angry that day my friends, like an old man trying to send back soup at a deli. But we persevered, and despite not seeing any crazy jumping sharks or partially eaten seagulls, we were lucky enough to get up close and personal views of six GREAT WHITE SHARKS, ranging in size from a wimpy 2ish metres and 1500 pounds to Rita McNeil scales of 4 metres and 3200 pounds.

What do I mean by up close and personal? Something along the lines of a GREAT WHITE SHARK opening wide and chomping on the cage bars approximately an inanimate carbon rod’s length away from me. Oh. My. Fuck. I was in shock for most of the rest of the day, before suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder up until about right now.

Needless to say, you should definitely, definitely do this.

Evidence (I’m waiting to see if pictures from my underwater disposable camera turned out. We thought we also had an underwater digital camera to use, as this is what one thinks when a male model acquaintance loans one a camera saying “here, use my underwater digital camera”. However, this kindly-loaned camera turned out to be the exact opposite of underwater-capable, and basically dissipated into a fine dust after taking these first two pictures, which are admittedly rad):

Duh nuh duh nuh duh nuh duh nuh

Lookin' good, feelin' good










The beasts in the water weren't the only beasts on-site




Fake Seal-chasin'

In 2006 I was fortunate enough to travel from Nairobi to Cape Town with the indomitable P. Olmsted. Traveling through Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Bostwana and South Africa, it was far and away the greatest trip I’ve ever taken. Because you know what? Any trip that involves an amorous endangered black rhinoceros getting creative in using his horn on the unmentionable region of his would-be female mate just has to be.

When we finished that trip, I was immediately in love with the awe-inspiring views, the energy, the everything of Cape Town. It just seemed to have it all and I always hoped I would get to return.

(Sidenote: I could really just describe how happy I am here with the fact that, as I write this, there is a blind band comprised of keyboards and saxophones repeatedly playing the introduction to “St. Elmo’s Fire” in the town square below me. Ah-mazing. I guess I’ll go on anyways.)

One of the fringe benefits of law school was that it provided a few extra years to spend money I don’t have on traveling. Also, it presented the opportunity to go on exchange for my last semester, and when the time came to make a choice, there wasn’t really a choice to be made at all. A chance to study law in a country with such amazing recent history? At Africa’s best law school (Think of all that competition!! This is the continent with the Ouagadougou School of Law!!!) To see the World Cup of Soccer in person? To live in a city that has great weather, a great icon (Table Mountain), great beaches, great accents, great mountains to play on, great surfing, great kiteboarding, great food, great prices and GREAT WHITE SHARK DIVING?

Welcome to Cape Town.



[I realize you may at this point already be irritated with what you’re reading. You get it, you say, you’re having a great time asshole, we don’t need to be beaten over the head with it. I would first note that I completely understand, second that this is why you’re reading this in a blog and not in a rage-inducing mass email, third that you are welcome, indeed encouraged, to visit, fourth that you should hate the game that is played not the player playing it (or something) and fifth that I probably love you very dearly and desperately wish you were here alongside me. Boop.]

So, how is African law school? Fantastic, thanks for asking STCleery.

Presumably because the fine people at UBC felt living in Africa was a tough enough thing to do (it’s not), we were told, indeed forced (earmuffs Papa Fin) to take just two classes while we are here. And since those two classes were still too much to bear, they do comprise an entire 7.0 hours at school per week after all, the powers that be decided it would be best to grade us on a pass/fail basis. Thanks! Oh, and fifty percent of our classes are ending 6 weeks early because the professor is a father-of-twins-to-be (isn’t that great!?!) and needs to go on paternity leave. Lawyers get 6-day weekends too, right?

The University of Cape Town inhabits an incredible plot of land on the slopes of the Devil’s Peak and of Table Mountain. It’s a pretty amazing place to go to school. This is the law school:



This is a view of the rest of campus from the patio at the law school:



And this is the main drag on campus:



I also like the University of Cape Town because it houses some of the world's last remaining hair bands. Evidence:



The school’s original benefactor, Cecil Rhodes, aside from being a notorious racist, was also known for his love of ivy. He mandated that every building had to be able to host ivy, and thus it is so. Hurrah!

I live with two fantastic young ladies from UBC. Her:



And that jolly young lass in the middle (that's me on the right!!!!!!!!):



The former is a half-Jewish, half-Asian super-overachiever who goes by the name of The Salzberg. She has odd penchants for hardcore rap, taking notes in pass/fail classes, and running fifty-six kilometer marathons. It does little for one’s self-esteem to come home from the bar to find a roommate putting on shoes to go for a 30 kilometre training run. That’s a picture of her and her boyfriend Matt. He’s great.

The latter, going by the name of The Swift, attracts large Congolese men seemingly daily (most notably, our boisterous apartment building doorman) and has a heart even bigger than the smile she sports in the above picture, which biologically means that she has a really goddamn big heart. While The Salzberg and I felt that “volunteering in Africa” was a liiiiittle too much of a cliché, The Swift is all over it like a fat kid on Smarties and will be heading up a project in some nearby refugee camps.

We live in an awesome apartment:



in the city centre, just off the main street of restaurants, clubs and bars. This is the view from our balcony, which overlooks Greenmarket Square and Table Mountain, no biggie





Taken at about 7AM after watching the Canada-Slovakia Semi-Final game:



and this is the view from the roof-top pool (I would like to refer you to the previous statement about hating the game, not the player. And calm down, it’s not even a full-sized pool):





I have an infinite number of witty anecdotes centring around international modeling season in Capetown, chicken curry served in a loaf of bread, Olympic celebrations and the wrath of armed guards, powder blue Mercedess(?) and accidentally ass-grabbing would-be pickpocketers, but the morning is drawing nigh and I must conserve my energy to wrestle these guys tomorrow.



With much love, Dunc