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Swimming among great whites
07/10/2004 15:28 - (SA)
The owner of Shark Diving Unlimited, Michael Rutzen, has returned to Kleinbaai after he was invited to the UK to speak at the Blue Planet aquarium's ocean awareness weekend at the end of August.
Michael gave seven talks altogether, two main talks and five shorter ones that were open to the public. The two aquariums were fantastic - Blue Planet in Chester and Deep Sea World in North Queensferry.
These aquariums are extremely shark orientated and do their utmost to educate visitors about sharks. Mike and Shark Diving Unlimited marine biologist Jenna Cains were lucky enough to be offered dives in both aquariums? main tanks.
Blue Planet keeps lemon sharks, nurse sharks and raggies, amongst many others, and Deep Sea keep five raggies plus other smaller species. Shark Diving Unlimited highly recommends these two aquariums.
Keeping the fort
During the two weeks Mike was away, the crew kept the trips ticking over, and are reporting good sharks up to about 4,5m in length at the moment. The sharks have moved away from Dyer Island to hunt around the shallower reefs in the inshore area.
There are plenty of Southern right whales around too, and the chances of spotting a few from the boat are good at the moment. Carte Blanche last week ran a piece on Michael?s free-diving with great whites after the documentary Beyond Fear that he made with German film-maker Ralf Kiefner, had been released in Germany.
As a follow-up, the Cape Times ran a front-page picture of Mike free-diving.
The free-diving was done before the activity was made illegal. For a deeper insight into the cage diving industry in Gansbaai, this month?s African Geographic features a well-balanced article on the subject.
- DistrictMail
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