Heading To Australia And The Great White Sharks

I’m off Down Under for two weeks to go cage diving with the great white sharks, amongst other things. I’ll be diving with Rodney Fox, who has spent the last 40 years researching great whites after being attacked by one himself

I’ve been dreaming about this all year and the time has finally come. Tomorrow I’m off to Australia to go diving with great white sharks. Back in December 2006 I did an interview with Rodney Fox by email for Scuba Diver AustralAsia magazine. Rodney is one of the world’s foremost authorities on great white sharks and has run expeditions for the last 40 years to research them – after being attacked himself by a great white and needing over 400 stitches to survive. It’s a miracle he pulled through and even more remarkable that he dedicated his life to finding out more about these fearsome but fascinating creatures.

While it was great to talk to Rodney by email, I wished I could have talked to him in person, as he has a lot of stories to tell. As luck would have it, Asian Diver magazine subsequently commissioned me to write an article about cage diving with the great whites and Rodney Fox’s work. So suddenly I was faced with achieving an ambition of mine that I’ve wanted to do for years. I’ll admit I’m a little bit nervous, but given Rodney and his son Andrew who runs the boat have never had an accident yet, I feel reassured I’m in safe hands.

What’s really good with the boat is that you don’t have to be a scuba diver to see the sharks from within the cage – they use a hookah breathing tube from the boat compressor so that anyone can get inside the cage and still have plenty of air. For scuba divers, the Rodney Fox expeditions are apparently the only boats running off the south coast of Australia where you can be lowered to the ocean floor in the cage and watch the sharks come in from above.

Meanwhile, Rodney and author and photographer Carl Roessler will be doing presentations on the boat about the history and habitat of the great white and their own encounters with them. (You can read more about Rodney Fox Expeditions if you’re interested in going on a trip yourself).

I will taking some no doubt very shaky video footage on my Canon IXUS 800 which will hopefully translate into a couple of entertaining YouTube clips.

While I’m away, there will be guest posts here from talented travel bloggers Cindy Carroll and Nick from Luxury Globetrotting. I’ll be back in Bangkok on 1st August but checking emails and comments every few days while I visit friends in Melbourne and Darwin. Here’s hoping I come back in one piece

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