Underwater pics taken on my little compact, need to house the SLR!
In July 2008 I headed out to South Africa for a two week diving holiday, the first week I flew 
into Durban and was based in the KwaZulu-Natal region.
Each day was spent diving with Tiger Sharks and Blacktips, one day we had a Bull Shark join in the action also.
All the sharks were amazing, but in particular the Tiger Sharks, sharks in general are extremely misunderstood creatures, dubbed as man eaters and of course the film Jaws was extremely detrimental to sharks reputation. Yes sharks have killed people, but considering the amount of times humans enter their territory these "mistakes" are very few and far between. They weren't in the slightest bit threatening or intimidating at any time despite being their close proximity, there are very curious animals and will come in and investigate, often giving you a bump, but at the end of the day we are simply just not on their menu.
If you haven't seen the film Sharkwater it really is recommended and give a great insight to the plight of sharks.
Tiger sharks are named for the dark, vertical stripes found mainly on juveniles. As these sharks mature, the lines begin to fade and almost disappear.
Launching the Rib was some days a feat in itself, as you can see there was plenty of surf! Our skipper knew his job though, counting the seconds between the waves as we circled before biting the bullet and taking the back wrenching route through.
But despite the rough seas and rough rib ride it was worth it to dive amongst these animals.
On the Tiger Shark (above to the right) you can see an electronic tag attached next to her dorsel fin, Mark tags a number of the Tiger sharks and follows their journeys.
The above Black Tip shark looks lucky to be alive, heavy scarring around the neck suggesting she has been caught up in fishing nets at some point, the injury had healed and apart from a decorative necklace seemed to leave no side effect.
We then flew from Durban to Cape Town where we based ourselves in Struisbaai for the remaining week. We now had a harbour so no more launching through the surf, however once out of the sheltered harbour we had some enormous swells to contend with at times.
Each day was a different dive site, one day was a 2 and half hour ride in the rib out toAlphard Banks, 42 nautical miles SE of Struisbaai, Cape Aghulas, to what is arguably the most southern scuba dive destination in Africa. We were hoping to spot some great whites, but they proved elusive, instead we were kept entertained by some short tailed rays.
Out of the weeks diving we had one day where we were lucky enough to briefly spot a Great White.
It was during this trip I saw freedivers in action for the first time, to me this looked far more appealing than clumsy scuba gear, and I came back from Africa with the intention of learning to freedive (which I did later that summer) and I am planning hopefully to return to dive with the Tigers and with luck Whites, but this time freediving instead of scuba.
