fishinmission78
04-14-2008, 11:02 PM
Two Americans and a Norwegian tourist hoping to get close to great white sharks on a cage-diving adventure drowned when their boat capsized after it was hit by a freak wave.
Sixteen people suffered minor injuries.
The accident happened in Gansbaai, a small town about two hours from Cape Town that calls itself the great white shark capital of the world.
The area's clear waters teem with great whites, each year attracting thousands of tourists who go out on shark-spotting boats and enter the water in sturdy metal cages in hopes of encountering the mighty predators.
The boat that capsized had just anchored and was preparing to lower the first cage, though no one was yet in the contraption, said Mariette Hopley, head of the Great White Shark Protection Foundation, which groups cage-diving operators in the area.
"The sea was flat and conditions were perfect to go out," she said. "Out of nowhere, a freak wave washed up right up against the boat and made it capsize."
There were no sharks in the near vicinity at the time because the boat operators had not yet put out any bait for them, Hopley said.
She said it was the first accident since the cage diving industry started in the town in 1991.
"We are all so shocked," she said. "This is an act of nature. There was nothing we could do about it. We just prayed together."
All 10 passengers and nine crew members were flung into the water, but 16 were rescued by nearby boats and taken to hospital suffering from shock and minor injuries, Hopley said.
Craig Lambinon, spokesman for the National Sea Rescue Institute, said the speed of the rescue operation limited the casualties. He said one woman had a fractured foot and one broke her arm.
Two of the three men who did not survive died immediately, while the third was alive when taken from the water but died before he could be transported to a medical facility, Hopley said.
Eight boat companies are licensed to run cage-diving activities in the area in what is now a multimillion-dollar industry.
The sharks - which have a powerful sense of smell - are drawn to boats with a mixture of blood and fish remains, a practice known as "chumming". Large fish dangled in the water keep them close by.
Gansbaai claims that its great whites - the only type to survive in the frigid waters there - are especially accessible because the Shark Alley, named for its unusual density of great white sharks attracted to a nearby colony of 40,000 seals, is so close to the shore.
South Africa was the first country in the world to declare the great white a protected species in 1991 - 13 years before international conservation bodies declared it to be endangered.
Sixteen people suffered minor injuries.
The accident happened in Gansbaai, a small town about two hours from Cape Town that calls itself the great white shark capital of the world.
The area's clear waters teem with great whites, each year attracting thousands of tourists who go out on shark-spotting boats and enter the water in sturdy metal cages in hopes of encountering the mighty predators.
The boat that capsized had just anchored and was preparing to lower the first cage, though no one was yet in the contraption, said Mariette Hopley, head of the Great White Shark Protection Foundation, which groups cage-diving operators in the area.
"The sea was flat and conditions were perfect to go out," she said. "Out of nowhere, a freak wave washed up right up against the boat and made it capsize."
There were no sharks in the near vicinity at the time because the boat operators had not yet put out any bait for them, Hopley said.
She said it was the first accident since the cage diving industry started in the town in 1991.
"We are all so shocked," she said. "This is an act of nature. There was nothing we could do about it. We just prayed together."
All 10 passengers and nine crew members were flung into the water, but 16 were rescued by nearby boats and taken to hospital suffering from shock and minor injuries, Hopley said.
Craig Lambinon, spokesman for the National Sea Rescue Institute, said the speed of the rescue operation limited the casualties. He said one woman had a fractured foot and one broke her arm.
Two of the three men who did not survive died immediately, while the third was alive when taken from the water but died before he could be transported to a medical facility, Hopley said.
Eight boat companies are licensed to run cage-diving activities in the area in what is now a multimillion-dollar industry.
The sharks - which have a powerful sense of smell - are drawn to boats with a mixture of blood and fish remains, a practice known as "chumming". Large fish dangled in the water keep them close by.
Gansbaai claims that its great whites - the only type to survive in the frigid waters there - are especially accessible because the Shark Alley, named for its unusual density of great white sharks attracted to a nearby colony of 40,000 seals, is so close to the shore.
South Africa was the first country in the world to declare the great white a protected species in 1991 - 13 years before international conservation bodies declared it to be endangered.