Gansbaai or Gans Bay is a little holiday and fishing village situated a 160km from Cape Town. The area has several attractions for the nature lover with whale watching being the most popular. Accommodation may be taken in any of the Bed & Breakfast establishments and the few restaurants offer good quality food. The daily Great White Shark cage diving / sighting trips are launched from the neighbouring Kleinbaai.
Great White Shark cage diving is strictly regulated by the authorities and conducted in an ethical way in accordance with international standards. It is absolutely safe and you need not have any diving experience at all, only a short course on safety and the use of the equipment.
The best time of the year is in April - September, when the Great White Sharks are particularly active in their feeding patterns (80-99%). Even though you still have a good chance of seeing the sharks during the other months (October - February), their feeding patterns are different and sightings are less consistent (80%).
Dyer Island has become known as one of only two unique areas in the world where there is an exceptionally good chance to chances see the Great White sharks. Other wildlife species such as Cape Fur Seals, Cape Gannets, Cape Cormorants, Jackass penguins, whales and dolphins are also likely to be sighted.
SCUBA Diving Safaris:
Adventure Diving Safaris offers a Southern African SCUBA Diving Safaris -- experience the thrill of Great White shark cage diving in Gansbaai and Dyer Island, tropical reef diving in Mozambique, shark diving and wreck diving at Aliwal Shoal and Protea Banks. Adventure Diving Safaris offers scuba diving safaris and holidays to the best dive sites in South Africa and Mozambique.
Dyer Island Background:
Dyer Island is named after its first inhabitant, an African-American slave – Sampson Dyer. In 1806, Dyer was left on the island by his American employers to run a seal culling operation. He would row the 4km to the nearest point of land in a tiny wooden row boat. He would take with him seal pelts for selling. Several years later, Sampson Dyer also started scraping guano (bird droppings). At that time guano was sought after as a fertilizer, and was so valuable it carried the nickname ‘white gold’.
After Sampson Dyer, there came a long line of headmen, and a hundred years of guano-scraping. These days, the island is a sanctuary, harbouring around 26-29 sea bird species, some of which are incredibly endangered or rare. The island is owned by Western Cape Nature Conservation, and the island as well as five hundred meters around it is completely protected. At present, no one except the island keeper and his wife are allowed to set foot on the island. Occasionally they welcome scientists and researchers. There are buildings and old guano storing sheds to be seen on the island.
Popular Diving Sites in South Africa:
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