How is it that our ocean of daily landlubbing is filled with such toothy imagery? Shark Week on the Discovery. Fools chumming and casting off a city pier on a major holiday – only to reel a juvenile white pointer into a group of swimmers. With all the boobtube countershading happening recently, whitey is lurking, and whether we need a bigger boat or not is up to how much panic we put into the water or our collective consciousness.
Personally, I’ve always had a sixth sense for the shark having grown up in the murky waters of the Floridian East Coast, brewed with brackish backwater bulls and mullet-chasing spinners. Great whites, however, can really command new levels of human respect.
Cape Town, South Africa, 2003. I’m at Dunes Beach and the surf is pumping. I decided to swim out with my trusty Bolex 16mm camera in aluminum SPL housing. The swell was a pretty solid, so massive riptide currents were all over the surf zone. Finally, after a hideous swim, I manage to get out the back. Way out the back. Into the peaceful serenity of slow, massive, rolling swell.
I’m swimming with my trusty fins in a full 4/3 and a hood. I’m tired and I know sharks can sense that. I look like a seal, I feel like a seal, and I know sharks enjoy seals, which upon realization can make one uncomfortable. This is when I noticed my sixth sense speaking to me. The idea of intermittently running short bursts of film through the Bolex camera was a good idea. Winding the camera. Running the camera. The motor buzzing in the aluminum housing amplified a mechanical frequency through the water around me. Finally, after 40 minutes, I was in position to line up a surfer pulling in. One shot. A massive set broke outside washing me in to the beach.
A few days later, the surf was flat and my friends Theo, Matt and I drove up to Gansbaai to go into the cage. The cage goes in the water with the shark. Our shark, if one was to make itself seen. An enjoyable early morning ride out to the seal rookery. Rising sun, hot chocolate in hand calming a little healthy dose of anxiety. The Captain slowed our small vessel swaying in glassy seas. Not a shark anywhere. Inviting enough to jump overboard for a refreshing morning wake up. With an eerie splash, our cage gurgled in bubbles as it sank. Our captain readying the breathing gear and a few fish heads were tossed over. Five minutes later, there she swam. A three-meter female was circling our boat.
Chilling in our 5/4/3 full dive suits, in the icy South Atlantic, at the bottom of the planet, enjoying the majesty of one of our oldest living creatures. Carcharodon Carcharias.
It was fascinating to me when I turned on my Bolex to capture her passing by us, the mechanical clinking of film rolling through the gate, the registration pin shuttering. I was able to get one decent shot of her. Then, she turned towards the dark blue abyss and disappeared.
Back at Dunes, a month or so later, a bodyboarder was bitten and killed. My friend Brent did his best to get him to shore after the attack.
Time passes giving a moment of clarity. I wonder how vulnerable I was swimming out the back on that big day at Dunes? I’m thankful I’ve never been mistaken for a seal or a fish. The great white gives us the connection to our planet. Keeping the primal vibe in our society hidden behind daily merchants and the sand paper skinned relationships that surround us all. We live and learn from this archetypal creature and, in return, it gives us more beauty through understanding. We are all sharking for a living. We entrain with the school to avoid being eaten alive.
