Kleinbaai to Die Dam

With Shark Alley on tomorrow’s route, I confronted the fear the best way I know how: shark cage diving. Marine Dynamics Shark Tours gave Warren and me an opportunity of a lifetime on their boat, Slashfin. What an experience, such a professional and knowledgeable crew, and we saw more than ten different Great Whites. Strangely enough, I am far more at ease after my time with the Marine Dynamics team. They also offered to escort me from Kleinbaai to Die Dam via Shark Alley.

Last night we stayed in the Marine Dynamics cottages so we could roll straight out of bed and down the road to the slipway, on the water 45 minutes after the alarm went off at 04h15. The maddening south-easterly of the past week had finally disappeared, replaced by very calm conditions, but with fog that got thicker as the morning went on.

Marine Dynamics put their 8m RIB, Calypso, and a smaller RIB on the water to look after me as I passed Shark Alley, between Dyer Island and Pearly Beach. The fog got so thick that visibility was down to 10 metres. My compass had blown off the boat on the drive to Gaansbaai and I only noticed just before launching, no time to reattach it, which left me very disoriented in the thickest of it, at one point heading 90 degrees off course before Calypso redirected me. The first glimpse of land through the fog was Quoin Point, and by the time I turned for Die Dam the westerly had picked up fast. Beaching was simple enough, just a couple of blinders to dodge and two-inch surf to land in.