Josh: South African Friends and Shark Cage Diving

Throughout the past week, Melissa, Drew, and I have forged friendships with South African students, experienced an extreme adventure, and attempted to stay afloat amid the rigors of our coursework. At Universiteit Stellenbosch, there are essentially two types of classes international students take: IPSU (International Program: Stellenbosch University) and mainstream. IPSU classes are taught fully in English and are available only to the 250+ international students. Mainstream courses, taught from the individual faculties and departments, feature either entirely Afrikaans or a combination of Afrikaans and English. Why am I mentioning this when our next post will be dedicated to classes and studies? Well, the most effective way to make South African friends at our university—Melissa and I’ve discovered—is through these mainstream courses. In my global governance module, I met a group of eight or so International Studies students who are incredibly hospitable and cool. Among these, the closest friends Drew, Melissa, and I have made are Stacey, her boyfriend Jacques, and Daniel.

On Wednesday, this trio, two Slovakian girls, a girl from Cape Town named Marian, and a few others from my global governance class took us out on the town. Whereas Thursday night is the social night at Missouri State University, Wednesday night houses all the Stellenbosch fun. It’s referred to as “Claander Saterdaag” (Halfway to Saturday). We went dancing for a little bit at Nu Bar, went to the Rhythm Lounge for a cocktail (my first and LAST cocktail: it was disgusting), ate some meat pies from the fast-food chain King Pie, and danced some more at [name to be given later…we were all too drunk to remember it. JUST KIDDING, enjoy a joke]. It was quite a fun night, but that was all the partying the three of us could handle; hence, we did not celebrate Claander Saterdaag this week.

We met up with Stacey, Jacques, Daniel, and Phil on Friday for the South African premiere of The Dark Knight. Going to the cinema in Stellenbosch is quite inexpensive. Each ticket costs R20 (about $2.85). Moreover, Drew and I split a large coke and large popcorn for only R26 (approximately $3.70). I personally loved the film, Melissa enjoyed the acting, and Drew found it too violent for a Batman film. Long gone are the days where Batman played up the cheese factor.

Rather than sleeping in late on Saturday, we all woke up and surprised Stacey by attending her res’s football game. Afterwards, we trekked towards the foot of Stellenbosch Mountain to our uni’s gimnasium. Situated about 15-20 minutes from our res, the gim is well worth the walk. It contains two circuits (You simply follow the proscribed, sequenced exercises in accordance with the timer!), many stationery bikes and rowing machines, free weights, aerobic and yoga classes at no additional expense, and an indoor swimming pool. Adopting the South African trend of staying fit, the three of us purchased gym memberships for the next four months. We live in a society with almost no overweight or obese citizens!

Alas, the most exciting part of the past week: On Sunday, we drove down the Western Coast (southern coast geographically) for two hours until we arrived at Gansbaai. We had scheduled a shark cage diving day through the Stellenbosch Adventure Center, and the moment had finally arrived. Melissa, Drew, Renee, and I all woke up at about 7:15 to get to our van by 8. Fortunately for us, the weather in Stellenbosch was pretty bleak, leaving many of the international students to believe the cage diving day would be cancelled. In Gansbaai, however, the weather was ideal for cage diving—our skipper told us at the end of the day that our shark viewing was unbelievable. Gansbaai, located near the southernmost point in Africa (where the Pacific and Indian Oceans meet), is world-reknowned for its great white shark populations. In fact, the area between Geyser Rock (a small island home to 50,000-60,000 Cape Fur seals), and Dyer Island (African penguins live here!) is called Shark Alley. During the winter months (April-August), a multitude of great white sharks gather between the islands to feed on cub Cape Fur seals learning how to swim.

After feeding us a large breakfast (which we kept down only long enough to get to Dyer Island…just ask Melissa for more details), our skipper briefed us about the shark population and general safety/guidelines. We boarded our boat and travelled out to Shark Alley, taking time to first view the seals. There, massive amounts of chum were poured into the ocean water, attracting a number of 3-3.5 meter great whites. In addition to Melissa, Drew, Renee, and I, three Holland tourists were cage diving. I first got into the cage with the three Holland visitors, and within three minutes great whites began swimming by the cage. Wow! Talk about an adrenaline rush. One time the shark’s left fin actually bumped into the cage. At that moment, one of the Holland girls became scared, so Drew entered the cage in her place. When the other two Holland divers emerged from the cage, Melissa and Renee joined us for the experience. While cage diving, you wear a wetsuit and snorkeling goggles; however, you don’t use scuba gear. Evidently the scuba breathing noise—unnatural to the sharks—scares them away. Moreover, because the sharks only swim by the cage for about 5-10 seconds at a time, you stay above water in the cage until a crewmember shouts “Down right” or “Down left” or “In front of you.” You then submerge to observe the sharks pass by. You only see great whites off the coast of Gansbaai because a) They are the only surface feeder sharks in the area and b) They eat all the other sharks. Yeah…In total, we saw seven sharks (two males, five females), each of which swam by our boat a number of times. The adventure was incredible, so much in fact that Melissa, Drew, and I purchased a 13 minute DVD of our day. We will definitely host a viewing party when we arrive back to the USA.

Well, we hope you enjoy these photographs from our great white shark cage diving day. For our next post, the three of us will address the challenges of Universiteit Stellenboch coursework.

Our departure point

Eating a hearty breakfast

The three amigos in search of Jaws

Geyser Rock is completely covered with Cape Fur seals

Yeah, we went inside that cage

A great white approaching the chum lure















Look at how close they get to the boat















South Africa is the only place in the world where Great White Sharks breach, or jump out of the water















Cue the theme from Jaws


Remember that our video contains much cooler footage of our day than these photos do. We will have a viewing party upon our arrival.