Some general background

The great white shark diving Gansbaai activity goes on all year round, because the boats are allowed to operate closer to shore in summer, when the sharks turn to fish as opposed to seals for their staple food.

There is undeniably a marked difference between seasons as to how likely you are to encounter sharks - winter finds the sharks more concentrated around seal sources and the seals are sneakier than fish, which makes for more spectacular hunting behaviour.

It is definitely a more commercial and busier environment than Simonstown. I would prefer Simonstown, but their season is limited to autumn/winter only

Where is it exactly?

Gansbaai (Goose Bay in English) is a small-but-bustling commercial fishing harbour about 2 to 2.5 hours drive from Cape Town, east of Hermanus.

Getting to GansBaai

If you have time in your schedule it makes sense to overnight somewhere in the vicinity of Gansbaai. There are some incredible places to stay nearby - Paradise Cottages at Pearly Beach being the basic self-catering option that I love, Grootbos being a more upmarket but reportedly fantastic family-friendly option.

If for some reason you have opted to do without your own transport the easiest way to get there is to arrange a tour. The downside of that is that you may have little say in choosing your shark dive operator.

Does it matter who you dive with? Ethical shark diving...

It doesn't make any difference at all as to price. And the local tourist information office makes no recommendations, just gives you the names of all the operators and tells you to take your pick! So it's up to you to find recommendations if you want them.

I have read travel forums and searched for recommendations, but as yet have found very few that name names. Most of the operators have testimonials on their websites, but obviously they would not put up the negative ones :-)

However, two of the great white shark diving Gansbaai operators have just been accredited by Fair Trade in Tourism South Africa as responsible tourism partners and I guess that makes them as ethical as you are likely to get.

They are Marine Dynamics (Dyer Island Cruises) and White Shark Projects.

There are several other operations based at Kleinbaai harbour too.
Here they are in alphabetical order --

Andre Hartman
Great White Shark Tours
Shark Diving Unlimited
Shark Lady
White Shark Adventures
White Shark Ecoventures
White Shark Diving Co.