Baited Shark Dive
No cages, no shark suits, just a drum of chum and the hope a few sharks turn up for the party
We had booked a couple of spots through Mick Clarke the owner at the Umkomaas Guest house where we were staying to dive the baited Oceanic Black Tip dive, but had not specified a day, we just left it to Mick to decide the best day for us. Mick gave us a shout the night before and dropped us off at the Aliwal Shoal Scuba Diving Centre, right on the beach next to the Umkomaas river mouth. After kitting up, the rib ride out was equally as exciting as the days before, but for the baited dive you head just south of Aliwal Shoal into deeper water. The crew lower a scaffolding pole down to about 15m which you are encouraged to hold on to, but were not forced to do so and they also lower a washing machine drum with chum into the water to attract the sharks. You can also get tiger sharks on these baited dives but this is usually in the the South African Summer, we were there in winter. We descend on the lines that suspend the scaffolding pole (with the large convenient Aliwalshoalsharkdive.com flag on it) and waited for the show to start. Sure enough after a few minutes the Oceanic Black Tips start to turn up one by one, growing increasingly more confident and approaching the divers. The shark numbers steadily built up until there were too many to count and the sharks began to swim amongst us and the other divers, occasionally bumping you gently or swimming straight towards you then veering ff at the last second.
