African Shark Eco-Charters are exceptionally pleased at our great reviews, and would like to share them with you. We thank everyone who takes the time to write about their cage diving experience, and we especially enjoy reading about how much our Great Whites are loved and appreciated. We hope to see you all again in the near future, and hope you carry your experience with you wherever you may go!
“Great experience that we will never forget”
Reviewed 16 October 2014
My wife and I planned our whole vacation around seeing a Great White at Seal Island and our wish came true – we saw a full breach and had a 12ft shark surface right beside the boat. Wow, what an experience! We got a couple of good pictures to remember this incredible moment.
The weather was great (prior 4 days had been cancelled due to bad weather) but the shark activity was low. Only one group got in cage and saw a shark – but it was still a great day and quite an adventure. It was so cool to actually be at the famous Seal Island after all the years hearing about it.
After watching Shark Week for a few years, our dream came true. We will never forget this great adventure. It was one of the top highlights of our vacation.
We highly recommend ASEC – the whole crew was great. Very helpful, friendly, experienced, knowledgeable and safety conscious.
We will definitely do this again with ASEC on our next trip to Cape Town.
“Excellent Adventure”
Reviewed 13 October 2014
This was my husband and I’s 8th wedding anniversary and we traveled with two of our friends and visited South Africa, Zambia, Botswana, and Kenya. We ended up booking our entire stay with the exception of Cape Town through AfricanMecca whom I will review separately.
I booked this company because Apex was on an expedition on one of the dates I wanted. We booked this trip 11 months in advance. This was our first outing of the 3 I had booked during this trip. Because we experienced two companies, I can point out the differences and what was best with each. The first thing with ASEC is that Rob comes out with you. We were picked up from the pier and took the ride out to seal island. The weather was nice and we saw a great sunrise. Seal island was amazing and we saw a lot of seals swimming around. We saw a few kills from a distance but by the time we would get there, it was towards the end. There was no breach.
We were unlucky in that apparently the sharks had decided to move elsewhere since a week before we arrived. The crew worked extremely hard to attract the sharks by banging on the bottom of the boat with a wooden pole and putting out a fish head on a rope. They also had to do a lot of dancing on their bucket of fish parts to get some parts and smells and juices into the ocean to attract the sharks. Finally one shark decided to grace us with his presence. 🙂 He wasn’t very large. Only about 12 ft long. We had opted not to go in the cage as it was very cold and we were all too chicken to get in the frigid water. The people in the cage were allowed 20 minutes and they had scuba to breath air through a tank so they were able to stay under the water for a long period of time. They also were allowed to change out of their wet suit inside the cabin with the exception of the booties.
There were 12 people on the boat. I opted to stay upstairs most of the time as I had a long lens and needed the extra distance to take pictures. It was a perfect setup and very comfortable. The rest of us stayed below on the first floor. Thankfully we chose to use the scop patch and felt nothing which was excellent. My girlfriend had experienced crazy rocky boats in the past and did not use the patch and she felt nothing either but I think she’s part fish. 🙂
From what I calculated based on all our pictures, the shark was next to our boat for about 20 minutes. The images are excellent. I think we all wish we had gone in the cage. They had food, snacks, and drinks for the whole trip which was a huge plus as well. The crew is very funny and professional. We thoroughly enjoyed our trip with them and will do it again in a heartbeat if we’re ever in Cape Town.
They do surcharge 2.5% if you use a credit card. This was another thing we should have taken into consideration and used a debit card instead as the charge would have been less even though we have a credit card with no foreign transaction fee. But they told us this while booking the trip and when we went to pay at the end of the trip and we chose to use a credit card. Haha.
Visited August 2014
“Great crew!”
Reviewed 25 October 2014
As is the case with any animal sighting in the wild, there’s a bit of luck involved. But the crew do their best to ensure that everybody gets a chance to get up close with the sharks. They’re also very careful about being ethical about how to lure sharks. We saw two sharks breach and about 6 sharks underwater, with one over 16 feet long! Shark diving itself is an experience and to do it with African Shark is something you’ll never regret!
“Amazing trip once again”
Reviewed 12 October 2014
We were lucky enough to go back to South Africa for another shark cage diving trip. It was a no-brainer which company we would use. Rob, Gary and the crew are amazing, as is the booking staff for ASEC. We had a run of bad luck with weather so a few dives were cancelled but Rob takes the safety of his crew and passengers very seriously and you feel you’re in expert hands.
If I have one minor complaint, it would be that the new cage allows for four divers, which makes photography quite difficult in such a cramped area.
I have been a Fan of Great Whites
Reviewed August 28, 2012
I have been a fan of Great Whites since I first saw Shark Week on the Discovery Channel as a kid. With so much anticipation, this was one of the most trip decisions I’ve made. I was a little overwhelmed with all the different tour companies operating around Cape Town. What made the decision for me was really the website. Specifically, the information about Rob and Karen and their personal passion and investment in the species. Also, the list of questions one should ask when choosing a tour operator. These little touches gave me confidence that I was choosing the right company for the experience I wanted.
The day of the tour, we were greeted by a friendly and confident crew ready to laugh with us and answer all of our questions. Rob really has a 6th sense about Great Whites and stays focused on ensuring a successful experience. He knows what he is doing. Allison kept us informed of the phases of the tour from breaching to the proper way of getting in and out of the cage. She was very knowledgeable about the behavioral aspects of the sharks. Brandon and Wellington did an excellent job attracting the sharks so that we had up close and personal encounters while in the cage. Excellent captain and crew. Oh also, there are free snacks, sandwiches and soda!
