The Foveaux Strait, The Muttonbird Islands and Great White Sharks

It was early in the morning on Saturday 21st December 2024 when we arrived at the offices of Shark Experience Ltd for our cage diving with sharks experience. The sky was overcast, it was dull and it was raining and the mood of the weather reflected, if I am honest, my own somewhat downbeat feeling. I was to put it mildly, a little nervous of the forthcoming day.

Whilst I was in the Royal Air Force, in the mid 1980’s, I took a course in diving at Fort Bovisand in Plymouth, home at the time to one of the naval diving schools. Back then I was pretty slight in build, weighing about 9 stone with a 28-30 inch waste. The joke was when I joined the RAF and went to get fitted for a uniform I was told, “This is the RAF sunshine, not the f*****g boy scouts”. Forces humour. Doesn’t change. Whilst having this size of body might be a boon at times, when I went on the diving course, it definitely was not an advantage. The only wetsuit they could locate for me, had a faulty zip, and didn’t fit properly anyhow, so every time I went in the cold water of the English Channel, my wetsuit failed to hold water close to my skin and the cold shock constantly put me into a minor breathing panic. Add to that an inability to clear my ears of pressure, plus the lack of visibility in the water (you could only see about 1m-2m maximum), all told the diving experience was horrible, and I had never done anything similar until this trip. So it wasn’t any worry about the sharks that made me nervous, it was my ability to control my breathing and deal with the cold shock.

Before I could worry about any problems diving into the water, we had to get to the location first, so after a bout of paperwork filling and sorting out the best underwater camera to hire, we headed for the small but cosy boat called the Southern Isle, with a big cage on the back and headed out into the Forveaux Strait with about 10 other visitors.

Remember back in Part 1 of this series when I mentioned about New Zealand South Island being right in the middle of the “Roaring Forties”? Well this is when we went right into the middle of those Roaring Forties. Yes, the trip out to the location was about an hour long and in some pretty choppy seas where every now and again, we were looking up at the top of the waves… Luckily I don’t suffer from sea sickness very easily, Sandra was suitably drugged up to help her, but others on the boat were looking decidedly green around the gills. So where were we going to?

We were heading to a bunch of small Islands part of a group of islands off of Stewart Island, known as The Muttonbird Islands or Northern TiTi Islands. Muttonbirds is an English translation of a Maori name for the Sooty Shearwater which breeds on these islands and traditionally has been a source of food for the Maori. We heaved to out of the wind and most of the rough waves in the lee of the island known as Edwards Island or in Maori the Island of Motunui.

Once in position, and anchored in about 10m – 15m of water, we had our briefing on getting into the cage and then also our quick course in clearing our mask and repositioning our breathing regulator if it became dislodged. The crew threw overboard a piece of bait to attract the sharks. The bait was half a large tuna boiled in some kind of oil which apparently the sharks can smell miles away. They also put overboard an underwater camera to monitor any arrivals at the bait and put that on a big screen in the cabin.

Within 5 minutes we all yelled “shark!”. And there on the screen was a Great White Shark. “Let’s get people in the cage!” shouted the captain, because we had been briefed only a few minutes before, that whilst the bait may attract the sharks the only thing that kept them sufficiently interested to keep them circling the boat was the noise, and sounds of people in the cage along with the bubbles from the regulators of the breathing equipment.

So down some people went, those that the more experienced divers went first. I got myself ready, a little nervous to be honest, squeezed myself into the very thick wetsuit, donned the gloves, boots and mask, had a weight belt strapped onto me and then it was time to get into the cage.

Down into the cage I went, one slow step at a time, letting the cold water seep into the wetsuit, all the way down I went up to my neck. I could feel my chest tightening, so I closed my eyes, took some slow deep breaths to calm myself, took another step down the ladder until my head was under the water, breathing in and out slowly as the cold water closed around me. And there I was under the water. The dive master took me through clearing my mask and repositioning the regulator, gave me the thumbs up and I was ready to go! Within a few minutes I found myself relaxing with the breathing, the wetsuit was extremely efficient and I was not cold at all. I went up again, so that others could complete their assessment, after that with another shark circling, it was a constant rotation of divers in the cage.

What a day! What an amazing day. We spent two hours watching these incredible creatures circling around us, have a go at the bait and then circle back around. I’m particularly proud that I mastered my fear of the diving, and probably spent more time in the cage than anyone else, as people started to drift away, getting cold or more probably feeling ill with the motion of the boat and water inside the cage. Because it was a bit bouncy in the cage, to say the least. You had loops of rope on the bottom of the cage to jam your feet into to stop you floating up, and there was a handrail on the inside of the cage to hold onto, with a thoughtful sign that read “Please Keep all Body Parts Inside the Cage”. Nice. But you got rattled around in the cage like a pea in a pod. Poor Sandra had to get out of the cage to be sick, and eventually I had to leave as I was pretty exhausted hanging on to the handrail. But what a day. What an amazing day!

It transpired later that there were three individuals who visited us, Duckie (3.4m), Motu (3.3m) and an as yet unnamed individual (3.2m). That is some size of shark, and these individuals were all adolescents, teenagers. I never felt in danger, but when they swam directly at you, with those black dead eyes, you know you are dealing with something pre-historic, something primeval. Quite unnerving, but equally utterly absorbing and incredible to watch.

After one of the sharks had nicked the last piece of bait, the captain said we had to return, so back across the now somewhat calmer Forveaux Strait we went. Back at the office we downloaded the pictures and videos and then headed back to the docks ready to catch the ferry back to Stewart Island, so that day we crossed the Forveaux Strait three times. Third time was a charm, the sea had calmed down quite a bit and the rain had stopped, so a relatively steady trip of about an hour and then we disembarked on Stewart Island, ready for our next encounter which we hoped would be with a real live and wild kiwi! More of that next time.

P.S If you are ever in South Island and want to cage dive with Sharks these are the guys to go with : Shark Experience Ltd, they did a great job of looking after us, kept it simple and fun. Highly recommended!

Cheers