Coenie is White Shark Diving’s master of the sharks. His special mix of tuna, sardine oil and fish juice gets ladled over the back of the boat and smears a smooth slick, which soon stretches for miles out to sea. There’s no secret ingredient and certainly no mammal blood. Inspectors visit the boats regularly and getting caught would put these guys out of business. He has been doing this for enough years now to actually know whether the sharks will ‘work’ with him. That’s Coenie-talk for coming right up to the boat and sticking their heads on the transom platform for a tickle!

Steve and Claire got the nod to kit up first and headed for the cage. Now the excitement had taken over any other emotions and for self-confessed shark nut Steve I knew he was in for a treat. He tried out a drysuit first time round in the 14C water but soon found that there wasn’t enough depth in the cage to squeeze the excess air out leaving him a bit buoyant. We had a visiting shark at around 3 metres long and Coenie lured him in for a good look as video cameras whirred and shutters clicked. The view from the flying bridge was actually far better than that at deck level for we could see right down into the water thus partly eliminating the reflective glare. After a few passes another shark came in for a look and soon even we could tell the difference between the different males and females passing by. The various shades of colour, the fin shapes and distinguishing marks from scuffles and bumps identified each individual. Folded claspers at the anal fin giving away the males as they often glide onto their sides for a look up at the boat.

Sure enough Coenie had sussed out a nosey one, a 3 and a bit metre male although size is hard to estimate and it’s not really the length of a great white shark that makes it a big one but more the girth of its body. Some may be three metres long and two metres across from pectoral fin tip to tip. Their bellies and mid torsos can be so massive that they are easily as huge as a cart horse.

In he came, rolling over onto his side, eye looking up at us, slowed to a stop, nose poking above the surface, Coenie reached out and pursed his fingers around the pointy tip whereupon the shark stopped dead, its mouth opened and the jaw dropped down, those famous triangular razor sharp teeth immortalised in so many images gleamed at us, eyes rolled back, Coenie still tweaking the sensors in the tip of the nose as the shark dropped away into the water. The first of the expletives were uttered and we all looked at each other, jaws gaping and aghast. Whether it was the first time or the umpteenth time of seeing one the reaction is always the same.

Apparently the tip of a great white’s nose is very soft, like nubuck leather but whether I’d actually want to find out for myself is questionable. Perhaps the action of touching all these sensory receptors somehow short-circuits the shark’s motor system as they really do stop dead in their tracks when touched on the nose in this way, some talk of going into a tonic state. From inside the cage these encounters were just as jaw-dropping.

On the surface there was a very stiff breeze that whipped at us constantly. This place can be beautifully peaceful or savagely fierce; today this is being kind to us. The water was cold, fourteen degrees Celsius and as I dropped into the cage the cold water filled my rented wetsuit sending shivers through all my bones and I had to sink below the surface in blind anticipation to mask the cold. I wedged my feet under the ring running around the bottom of the cage. Instinctively I sucked hard to shrug away the shock of the cold and the surface fed demand valve delivered life gas as reality unfolded and the dream began to play. Now I looked into the misty visibility and scanned for a great white shark. You don’t really know what shapes to look for but from countless film footage and documentaries sharp pointed fins, or torpedo shaped bodies run through your picture book mind. As if to keep you on the edge they cruise just out of sight and it’s only when you aren’t looking that they appear. Right there in front of my eyes was a great white shark! Slowly he slid past the bars of the cage, my regulator hissing and bubbling away. In real life they are even more awe-inspiring than any book, photograph or film can ever even start to make them.

I guarantee it will simply take your breath away.

They are unquestionably magnificent creatures, apex predators, curious even inquisitive, certainly intelligent and most definitely gracious. Effortlessly they glide past sometimes very close to the cage and the sunlight penetrating the surface helps you pick out all those documentary details for yourself. The steeply raked fin shapes, angular and cutting, the pointed snout armed with its array of sensitive pits peppering the nose surface like tiny absent whiskers. You can marvel at the dynamic bodylines and flattened tail keels, the tail fin itself is an enormous near symmetrical blade carved seemingly from some exotic metal. There is the classic great white shark grin with the jaws held just apart to allow a healthy flow of oxygenated water out through the gathered gill slits. With every pass you notice more and all too soon the time comes to swap with one of the other guys on top.

Clambering up to the surface there are no thoughts of whether you’ll be attacked getting out, just pure elation at having shared a very small piece of ocean with the world’s favourite bad guy.

From the surface we noticed around a dozen different sharks passed by the boat during the day, some stayed, some carried on to who knows where. Some of them were curious and we were treated to spectacular passes with their heads held clear of the water and black eyes inspecting us. When you get this close to a great white shark’s head the traditional description of cold black eyes cannot be justified, as there are shapes within the dark disc, image recorders as data is being processed and sometimes an individual will glide almost to a stop just looking at us. It affected me profusely for I felt something more than just looking at a shark. I was actually being checked out, my image recording somewhere in that shark’s senses, somewhere within its brain. When they swam away I wondered how long the question lingered with them. ‘What was that creature up there on the boat all about then?’

Back down in the buffeting, cold cage and the thrill is back, it’s not comfortable on a day like this and filming and camera work is a nightmare but then a male shark swims in from the left to take the bait. From somewhere way off his sensor system has picked up on the slick of oil and tuna scent, two of their heads chained to a float. At three and a half metres long he sweeps up from below and clamps his jaws onto the tuna. His head begins to slash from side to side, firmly but not frenzied. Eyes are rolled back out of harm’s way. The great blade of a tail powers him upwards and the slashing becomes more determined.

He begins to move round towards the cage, I am mesmerised. The shark uses its head to work away at the stubborn bait and then turns towards us. The maw begins to chomp down on the tuna, still slashing sideways. So close is he now that all the muscles in the throat and neck are easy to see in detail, flexing and bulging, the outline of the massive jawbone is clear to see. The black eye is shielded white. With the brilliant white underside glaring at us, it’s easy to see the origin of his name. The action of his jaws clamping shut flushes gallons of water through the tapered gill slits, he is still chomping and slashing at the tuna in an effort to release the heads from the float. Although concentrating on freeing the bait his on-board senses tell him exactly where his body is in the water. He comes about heading straight for the cage with his massive left-hand pectoral fin planing the huge torpedo body. Carving his head from side to side all the time his great tail powering as he then spins and comes right at the cage. Instinctively we push to the rearmost boundary of the small wire sanctuary for the round cage has no corners, the fin passes in front of our eyes, close enough for its black tip to brush against the bars. Then the tail sweeps past the double spaced camera opening, its upper hooked lobe is before our very eyes, it is absolutely enormous, in a flash it is there, then gone as the shark wheels full circle and makes for the transom where he is being directed topside by the bait puller. Those up there could only see our Jacuzzi of bubbles from the howls of excitement screamed through the regulators. All they get is frothing white water as bucketfuls of ocean are thrown up by the white’s huge tail.

As the beating tail bites solid water and propels him forward, there is just enough time to see the lateral stabilising keels visible on each sweep, and then he is gone into the murk.

Jagged tooth had his prize for now.

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