The First Choice Shark Cage Diving Operator For:
Are you an independent, adventurous traveller looking to benefit from the expert local knowledge of an eco-friendly, professional, pioneering, world-renowned shark tour operator? Do you want flexibility in your itinerary, choosing where you want to cage dive and for how long? Would you like to add offbeat attractions and local activities to make the absolute most of your shark trip? If so, our custom eco shark cage diving packages are perfect for you, offering unrivalled freedom and truly maximizing your trip of a lifetime! It will be our pleasure to customize an unforgettable experience just for you.
South Africa has a number of shark hotspots stretching from Cape Town all the way to Port Elizabeth, and our extended, flexible time frames allow you to get to know the different sharks, their distinct personalities, and to experience a wide range of shark behaviour. With the assistance of our expert guides, you will start to recognise the individual sharks and their characters. Believe us – this is a hugely-rewarding experience. This extended time frame also allows for photographers, amateur and professional, much more opportunities to bag that highly-sought after shot.
To give you an idea of a tailored shark tour in South Africa, we would like to share an example of a six night seven days Cape Coastline tour.
All options offer very good chances to see Great white sharks over 4 different locations as well as the chance to see other species of sharks. We feel excited about these options and we are sure you will love them too.
False Bay, Simon’s Town is home to some of the most famous marine predators and has an abundance and diversity of wildlife that is seldom matched elsewhere. Chris Fallows has written a blog which will gives you a truly special insight to False Bay called Serengeti of the Sea.
Simon’s Town
The historical naval town of Simon’s Town is situated near Cape Point, a 45 minute drive south of Cape Town on the False Bay side of the Cape Peninsula. This quaint town is where you will be staying and offers a walk down Simon’s Town’s historical mile or a visit to the local, navy and toy museums. The many activities include whale watching (June to November), deep sea fishing, sea kayaking, kite surfing, scuba diving and sailing.
Spend your afternoons getting to know beautiful Cape Town.
Cape Peninsula tour
On route to the Cape of Good Hope, stop at the Boulders Beach Penguin Colony, home to 3000 African Penguins. See these delightful creatures up close in their own habitat. You will also get the opportunity to experience the sights and sounds of Kirstenbosch, Muizenberg and Kalk Bay. This can be a full day or half day tour.
Stellenbosch Winelands tour
This full day tour includes a cellar tour and two tastings in Stellenbosch at Fairview, Tokara or Neethlingshof wine estates.
Constantia Wine tour
This half day tour includes a cellar tour and two tastings at some of finest wine farms Constantia has to offer.
Table Mountain and City Highlights tour
Visit one of the world’s greatest natural wonders, Table Mountain. Tickets need to be bought in advance and are not included in the tour cost. We’d be happy to arrange this for you. The City Highlights tour will take you to places of cultural significance around the city including: The Castle, the South African Museum, the Waterfront and Bo Kaap. This can be a half day or full day tour, depending on how many sights you wish to visit.
Township Tour
Your half day township tour would include a visit to the District 6 Museum, a visit to a school in the area, visiting an informal dwelling and the new development, experiencing the arts and crafts of the area and general sightseeing. The townships you will visit are Langa, Gugulethu, Bonteheuwel and Athlone.
Cheetah experience
Cheetah Outreach is an education and community-based programme created to raise awareness of the plight of the cheetah and to campaign for its survival.
Day safari Inverdoorn
Prior to setting off for a two and a half hour game drive in an open air 4×4 with a professional guide, there’ll be homemade cake and drinks. Sightings include lion, hippo, buck, giraffe and cheetah. A buffet lunch will be served under the trees. Relax around the swimming pool or visit the curio shop.
Birds of Prey
Visit the Birds of Prey Rehabilitation Centre where you can view amazing birds of prey shows. There is also wine tasting and a restaurant on the same premises. This is offered as either a full day or half day tour.
Other activities
Guides and tours can be arranged for the afternoons on weather affected days including snorkelling with Cape Fur Seals.
Other exciting things to do – Two Ocean Aquarium visit and dive with the Ragged Tooth Sharks (certified divers only), Table Mountain, Robben Island and The Izikio Museum Shark Exhibit. We can book these additional tours on your behalf when planning your shark package.
Gansbaai
The history of Gansbaai is as rich and colourful as the exquisite beauty and bounty of the environment that birthed it.
Since the Stone Age times, some 80 000 years ago, when the first ancestors of modern man haply co-existed in the abundance of nature along the rocky shores of Walker Bay, little has changed to spoil the pristine uniqueness of this “Klein Paradijs” where some people believe Adam and Eve used to live.
The abundant sea and wildlife and variety of floral and fynbos vegetation along the coast and Duynefontein Mountains never ceased to provide man and animal with ample food, shelter and freedom to experience nature to the fullest.
Several caves along the rocky coastline around Gansbaai still jealously guard the ancient secrets and sorrows of yester-year’s peoples who lived, loved and roamed this region eon ago. This area, later named De Kelders after the numerous historical caves, also boasts the only freshwater cave on the coast of Africa. It is in one of these caves, the Klipgat Cave, where archaeological evidence was found of early modern man living here some 80 000 years ago, as well as the Khoisan about 2 000 years ago. Klipgat Cave is now an important historical site in the Western Cape. Similar old remains have only been excavated in two other places in South Africa.
Nature’s law of giving and taking is also very evident in this land of milk and honey.
The same Khoisan peoples who freely roamed and treasured the richness of this land before so-called civilization moved in, were all wiped out during a devastating smallpox epidemic in 1713, thus taking an invaluable treasure chest of untold stories and cultural heritage with them to the grave.
Furthermore, the same treacherous seawaters around Gansbaai that provide so lavishly also claimed its rightful share over the years. Since the first explorer ships docked here centuries ago, the rocky shores between Danger Point and Cape Infanta have claimed thousands of lives. Seven shipwrecks around Danger Point and 140 wrecks along this coastline are silent testimony to the perilous force of these waters. Small wonder that the Flying Dutchman was spotted here for the first time.
One of these shipwrecks, the HMS Birkenhead, became famous for being the first to apply the “women and children first” protocol in 1852. The women and children were saved, but all 445 men, mostly soldiers, perished.
Even today, the rough seas around Gansbaai, which has since become world-renowned for its abalone, Great white sharks and Southern Right whales, regularly claim the lives of fishermen and poachers.
The first white settlers who settled in this area in the early 1700’s were mostly nomadic sheep and cattle farmers who only occasionally fished for fun. It was only in the early 1800’s that the abundant sea life started attracting fishing activities. The first permanent fisherman’s cottages were built in 1811 under the dense Milkwood forests in Stanford’s Bay, near De Kelders.
The town of Gansbaai originates from 1881 when an adventurist, Johannes Cornelis Wessels, walked here from Stanford and discovered the fishing possibilities and freshwater fountain near the old harbour. Other families followed suit and named the place Gansgat after a colony of Egyptian geese that congregated at the fountain. It was later altered to the more respectable Gansbaai.
Mossel Bay
It is the fascinating history of Mossel Bay which grants the town its status as the historical capital of the Garden Route and one of the most historically significant towns in South Africa. Ancient stone-age fish traps and cutting edge fuel from gas technology; Khoi-San herders and European traders – the history of Mossel Bay is a microcosm of the history of South Africa herself.
Mossel Bay has always been associated with early European explorers. Bartholomeu Dias, the Portuguese Navigator, was the first European to discover the Southern tip of Africa while searching for a spice route to the East.
Having missed the Cape during a storm his first landfall was at Vleesbaai where he was prevented from going ashore, either by hostile Khoi cattle herders or by the rough surf, so he continued around the Point and landed (in what is now Munro’s Bay) on 3 February 1488 (165 years before the first settlement in Cape Town). The Portuguese used this Bay for about 150 years until the Dutch Fleet forced them off the Indian Spice Route.
Dias named the bay AGUADA DE SAO BRAS, the Watering Place of St Blaize, as they landed here on the festival day of this Saint. The spring is still here today but now no longer flows on the surface to the sea nearby although it was still flowing during the 1970s. Dias sailed eastwards along the coast as far as the Great Fish River where his crew refused to go any further. As was the custom he erected a padrao at his turning point before sailing Home. After years of research pieces of this padrao or Portuguese Cross were found at Kwaaihoek near the mouth of the Bushman’s River and are now in safe-keeping at Wits University.
On his way back Dias discovered the Cape and named it Cabo de Boa Esperanza, Cape of Good Hope, and not Cape of Storms as is believed. Nine years later, in 1497, Vasco da Gama landed in the Bay. He traded a red cap and some bangles for an ox with “the little brown men on the beach”, possibly the first barter commercial transaction on the Sub-continent.
In 1500, Pedro d’Ataide sought shelter here after losing much of his fleet in a storm. He left an account of the disaster in an old shoe which he suspended from a Milkwood tree near Da Gama’s spring. Incredibly, the report was found by another explorer, Joao da Nova in 1501 – and the tree, now a national monument, has served as a kind of a postal clearing house ever since.
A Portuguese Captain, Joao Da Nova, was presumably responsible for the famous Mossel Bay Stone, which has the inscription 1500 or 1501. The Stone itself is housed in the SA Museum in Cape Town but a cast can be seen in the Cultural History Museum in Mossel Bay.
But Mossel Bay’s history goes back many thousands of years which explain the presence of our many archaeological sites. The early seafarers found 3 tribes here, the Gouriqwas, the Outeniqua or Attaqwa, and the San. The Khoi and San are both believed to be descendants of early man in Africa. The San were hunter gatherers, while the Khoi, also called Strandlopers, were herdsmen and fishermen. They kept cattle for pack animals and for riding on. The Khoi possessed a good knowledge of healing herbs and were often called upon to help sick sailors left in their care.
We have a variety of accommodation establishments from Airbnb, Bed and Breakfast, Guesthouses and Hotels. Our set package accommodation options are clean, spacious and within the 3 – 4 star grade
Simon’s Town
Holiday Court – Our Self- Catering Apartment
Located above Simon’s Town village with sea views of False Bay, this two-bedroomed upmarket apartment is a home away from home. The apartment boasts a King Size extra length bed, walk-in shower, fully equipped kitchen, Dstv and Wi-Fi.
Grosvenor Guest House
Located on the mountainside of Simon’s Town, the Grosvenor Guest House offers guest 4-Star accommodation with stunning views across the bay. Each guest will have their own en-suite room.
Facilities include Wi-Fi (at an extra cost), Satellite TV, a safe, laundry services and a well equipped kitchen.
The Quayside Hotel is set on the water’s edge of Simon’s Town and offers fantastic views over False Bay. The hotel is comfortably furnished for ultimate relaxation and all rooms have en-suite bathrooms with separate bath and shower. Each bedroom offers luxury, decked out in nautical décor. Apex’s launch site is a minute walk from the hotel.
Gansbaai
White Shark Guest House
Located directly opposite the meeting point of your trip, the White Shark Guest house offers a ‘home from home’ a taste of a true South African Experience. The balance of old and new provides a warm ambiance.
This 4 star guest house is clean, comfortable and spacious and is centrally located.
Point Village Hotel
Point Village Hotel is located a few metres from the Indian Ocean, at the end of Mossel Bay’s peninsula, and 1 km from Mossel Bay harbour, town centre and the meeting point of your trips. The spacious rooms offer partial bay views.
All accommodation options include a flat-screen TV. Standard rooms have a small kitchenette, and the self-catering apartments have a fully equipped kitchen.
Aquamarine Guest House
Aquamarine Guest House is a 4 star graded guest house offering an exclusive five bedroom gem, with a fresh modern touch. It is centrally located in the main street of Mossel Bay, with secure off-street parking and remote controlled gate. The Guest House is within easy walking distance (10 minutes) to the trip meeting point.
The cost is dependent on your chosen itinerary
Includes
Excludes
Booking
A 50% non-refundable deposit upon booking, with balance due 120 days before the start of the expedition.
Cancellation policy
Less than 120 days before start date: 100% of the fee. No show: 100% of the fee.
No credits will be given for cancellations beyond our control.
Wildlife Sightings Cannot Be Guaranteed.
We Will However, Give You Realistic Expectations before Making A Booking.
