Great White Shark Mossel Bay Breach

Juvenile Great White Shark breaks the surface in front of the Outeniqua Mountains!

Mossel Bay is famous for the iconic resident population of Great White Sharks. The bay has played host to countless documentaries and TV shows over the years including the infamous Air Jaws on Shark Week. The breaching sharks pioneered initially by Chris Fallows has become one of the staple segments of the show. What makes this location even more desirable as a film and photography location is the incredible skyline. The incredible Outeniqua Mountain range would be the perfect back drop for any type of photography but it becomes even more special what Great White Sharks are added.

This video was taken at Seal Island in Mossel Bay a harbour town on the Garden Route in South Africa’s Western Cape Province. You can see other similar behaviour in some of the other clips on the channel.

Photographers and Filmmakers travel from all over the world to witness and capture the moment a Great White Shark explodes vertically out of the water with a seal in its mouth. Like all artists though the mission to capture the perfect shot is never finished. Early Mornings when the sun is rising and the Outeniqua mountains are bathed in gold, a Great White Shark bursting through the surface of the water meters from the boat is a hard and illusive image to capture, but this is the ultimate goal. 

In the video you see a Juvenile Great White Shark lazily lunge out of the water after the bait with the iconic Outeniqua Mountains in the background.  The iconic landscape can be seen in many shark documentaries and will hopefully be used for many to come providing the sharks are preserved. We have seen Great White Sharks disappear or become a lot less frequent in other bays in South Africa that have been historically known for having them. Great White Sharks face many challenges, (Bycatch, overfishing, trophy fishing, long lining, changing sea temperatures, increased marine traffic and many other challenges) it is tough to say what the future holds for the Mossel Bay Great White Sharks but we certainly hope and want to do everything we can to keep them around.