Just a quick vid, showing some diving we did off Cape Point.

Enjoy

One of the Netherlands most acclaimed award-winning underwater photographers, Peter Voerhoog, traveled to Cape Town with the goal of photographing blue sharks for his latest book “Sharks, close encounters”.

Sharks, close encounters by Peter Verhoog

Here are some of the images he captured while diving with us in the Cape

Dusky Dolphins play in the cool Atlantic waters off Cape Town

Cape fur seals in Houtbay harbor

Steve Benjamin and Sevengill cowshark

Blue sharks investigate Peter off Cape Point

Cape fur seals playing off Duiker Island, Houtbay

Peter in tough conditions in order to get the blue shark images

I am looking forward to this inspiring book and am proud to have played a small part in it

Steve

We headed out into a gloomy cape morning, watching rain clouds on the horizon draw upon us as we neared our destination, “the canyon”. We did a small detour to investigate a fishing vessel called “Fox Glove”. We were searching for tuna. The divers jumped in but found only seals and fish heads. We left the ship and found an area that looked promising and started chumming.

Th spearo’s jumped in and were quickly joined by a hyper-active 1m long Shortfin mako, which quickly disappeared. I got in and enjoyed diving in the clean warm water. Lying on my back at 28m looking up I could clearly see the boat, looking down I could see out bait trail disappearing into the depths.

We were eventually joined by 2 Blue sharks that hoovered up any pilchards we put in the water. Jean, who was the inspiration for this trip was very seasick and I knew he  would not be happy if he sat this one out.  So I pushed, pulled and taunted but got him in the water.

A small 1m mako arrived, very excited and raced around and between the divers. I is amazing to seen the fastest shark in the ocean swimming with us. Mako’s are know to have bursts of up to 74 km/h (46 mph). A second slightly larger mako arrived and was much more comfortable with us. Everyone enjoyed watching the activity but most soon left the water. I was left alone with 2 blues, a very relaxed mako and Jean’s camera rig….a dream come true, thank you Jean.

I snapped away and here are the results…

Blue shark cruises in

A relaxed Mako comes in for a look

The fastest shark in our waters relaxed and swimming with us

The king of the open ocean cruising above me and under my boat

Mako tail, the caudal keel of is huge

Report by Jean Tresfon

- After hearing some good reports of tuna being caught at the Canyon (a spot 25nm SW of Cape Point) a few friends and I decided to spend a day at sea trying to shoot a few of these fish. My friends are all spearos and my weapon of choice was a Nikon. We went out with Steve Benjamin of Animal Ocean. The sea was very rough with fair size swell and around 20kts of wind. We did not find the tuna, but did manage to attract a few blue sharks and mako sharks. For me the day was characterised more by missed opportunities than by the results that were obtained. I was really sea-sick, worse than any time in the last 5 years despite being at sea every weekend. When Steve reported the arrival of the sharks I really could not have cared less and just lay on the deck heaving. Steve did not relent and would not rest until I had kitted up and dropped over the side. Being in the water did not help much but I took a few decent shots over the course of about 20 minutes. After that I started to throw up in the water and was in danger of drowning so I climbed back in the boat. (I also was no longer concentrating on watching the sharks which is not clever when there are excited makos darting around). I preset the exposure on the camera and handed it to Steve, who spent another half an hour in the water taking pictures. While my own memories of the day were not the most pleasant, I can only recommend the trip to others. These pelagic sharks are stunning, and being out there in the warm clean water, with 600m to the bottom and nothing but you and the sharks is just an experience that words and pictures just cannot do justice to. I will definitely be going back soon, but this time will be taking a few motion sickness tabs before hand!

Have a look at more pics from the day at Jeans Flickr stream here

Cheers

Happy diving

Steve

We headed out out of Houtbay Harbor in search of Blue sharks. We had a limited window to capture the images we needed and the break in the weather was marginal at best. We traveled West and rode through the rain and fresh winds of the peninsular. We saw a few Tuna poling boats but no trawlers or long liners to make finding sharks and fish easy. The water temperature was suitable, we started chumming and the Blues found us. We ended up with 8 sharks ranging from 50cm to 2,5m in length. There were a few seals in the area which occasionally came in to have a look.

In the video you can see one shark approach and give the camera an inquisitive nibble.

Peter Verhoog was there to capture some images of these amazing sharks

Still image from video as the blue shark approaches

Inside of a blue sharks mouth

A poor image showing seals and blue sharks interacting

We ventured into the deep to find tuna and sharks. Here are a few pics from the day…..

I jumped in behind a trawling vessel that was lifting it’s net. The cod end came past and I watched as cape fur seals pulled fish out from the net.

The bird life is amazing

A hake fallen from the nets

A yellowfin tuna

We headed out into the deep for a day of exploration. Here are some images from the day

Hundreds of seabirds following a stern trawler

Looking for Tuna

Trawler chasing

White chinned petrol feeding on left overs from the trawler

James Toylor body surfing the bellows