News24 | Getting Outdoors: Diving with blacktip sharks and the seafood craving that hits after

In this week’s Pick of the Pack, Riaan Manser goes diving with blacktip sharks off the east of South Africa, and muses on how being in the middle of their feeding frenzy always makes him hungry for seafood and a cold beer afterward.

The east coast of South Africa has so much of the outdoors to offer, probably more “underwater” adventure than any other coastline in Africa.

The recent tourism investments in this region have made many people sit up and take notice.

Which is exactly what I did when someone asked me to join them in a deep dive in the ocean among a school of feeding blacktip sharks.

Worth sitting up for, I’d say.

You can too, quite easily. There are only a few hoops to jump through, and you are 20m below the ocean surface, eyeball to eyeball with the apex predators of the oceans.

If you fly to Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, rent a car and drive southward for 85km to the town of Umkomaas (about an hour), you will find a few dive centres and resorts offering you food, accommodation and dive certification if required.

An Open Water 1 qualification is needed to do this specific dive.

They also allow snorkelling on this baited trip if conditions allow.

We used Blue Ocean Dive Resort for our refresher course and accommodation.

If you think diving is a small business, think again. They alone have 58 rooms available for individuals and families.

Contrary to some rumours, the rules DO allow someone who has just flown down to sea level to dive. It is only the other way round that requires some time to acclimatise.

A self-contained underwater breathing apparatus is essentially still an abnormal thing, no matter how you view it, so it does require caution.

The vibe at these resorts is energetic even at the worst of times.

Everyone is expectant of adventure and discovery during the upcoming descent.

Non-stop chatter and regaling of past dives, combined with pent-up nerves, is always an attractive environment for me.

Once all the divers have been approved and checked, we are whisked off to the banks of the Umkomaas River.

Here is where we board our large, robust dive zodiacs; the first checkpoint being our entry to the open ocean.

Underneath the R102 and railway bridge, we now face the river mouth and its pounding surf: An exciting way to start the day.

Then, we take a 5km trip to the primary goal – Aliwal Shoal: A reef 3km long and 1km wide with varying depths to satisfy all skill levels.

The Blue Ocean skipper chooses an appropriate spot to throw the drum, holding a few kilogrammes of sardines.

This is the call to all the wildlife down below, including the shark community.

We are ordered one by one to enter the water in traditional scuba style, backward off the side of the boat.

Descending 15m at first to observe what nature will present to us.

And the show was extraordinary to say the least: Blacktip sharks by the dozens bumping into and over me to get to the sardine chunks.

You are caught in the centre of a whirlwind where you are, in fact, beyond secondary – you’re actually insignificant.

The dive can last up to an hour, but if you are inexperienced in this form of diving, you will be using twice your normal oxygen.

Like me, you may only end up diving for 35 minutes. But still worth every penny spent. Wow.

Fortunately, there is plenty of other wildlife to see, from rays to parrots and triggerfish to even tuna and barracuda.

The appearance of other larger sharks, like Zambezi and great whites, is often also reported.

A slight bit of relief for me to know I can see the latter on another dive I might do here one day.

We headed back to the incredible host resort for a meal and some cold drinks.

What always astounds me is how I crave seafood after a dive and a cold beer. Let me know if this is odd or not, the desire for seafood, that is.

Diving is one of those activities where your host looks after everything from minute one till the end.

Just get there. ASAP.

*Riaan Manser’s Students in Antarctica is an annual tour based at Ultima Air Base. Riaan is a pioneering international explorer with multiple world-firsts and has joined the team as the new editor of News24 Outdoors, driven by Ford.