A cage on the side of a boat. You and the ocean’s greatest predator. It’s not actually diving, just safely sharing the water with great white sharks. They get unnervingly close, banging hulking frames into the cage, gliding past with a hunter’s precision.

Great whites congregate near Cape Town, off the coast of Gansbaai. Fur seals are their quarry, enormous colonies that provide dramatic moments as sharks soar clear of the ocean. From the boat deck it’s spectacular, the sharks’ brute power matched by their stealthy underwater shadows.

And from the water it’s something else. You get the best boat, best guides, and longest time in the cage.