18 Years of Shark Diving Bookings

It was December 2000 when Dave Caravias moved to Gansbaai permanently. Dave designed and was involved with the building of The Roundhouse Guesthouse. After completion in 2003, the house quickly became known to locals as Roundhouse. Initially, the Guesthouse was going to be dubbed something else but after the building process, the name Roundhouse just made sense as that is how everybody fondly referred to it. When we look back we remember how the locals brought their families from Johannesburg and elsewhere to walk through this tall and strange round house whilst it was still being built. We still get locals regularly that just want to walk through the house and see how practical this Roundhouse actually is inside. In this modern African house, you will find many things that have been hand made such as the unique thatched doors and cabinets throughout the kitchen and rooms as well as the rope woven luggage racks and more.

You can learn more about the Roundhouse on the following site: www.theroundhouse.co.za. After a few months of operating The Roundhouse Guesthouse as a running B&B we decided to expand our company into the ever-growing diving and travel industry of South Africa and particularly Gansbaai.

2003

2003 Saw the birth of Sharkbookings.com and this has definitely been Dave’s baby as he nurtured this company from a self-built 12-page website to the world-class booking service. To summarise, Sharkbookings.com is a dive specialist in shark diving countrywide as well as many international destinations. This newly re-launched website sees Sharkbookings.com expanding into many new destinations worldwide covering Sharks and Rays.

Sharkbookings acts as a central website and booking office where clients can browse and easily learn about the facts of the Sharks, Shark Diving Companies and Shark Diving trips without having to read through website upon website trying to extract the best information and choose the best boat and trip for their needs. All of the information is in 1 place and easy to access and browse to see the differences between the experiences.
The booking process has been refined and it is now extremely easy and fast to book the shark dive you wish through our service.

There is no false advertising and all of the information is streamlined and verified to give you the end user an informative and accurate account of the experience or company. Dave is passionate about sharks and quality diving with big animals and he wants everyone to have the best from their experiences as he has done in the past. Dave’s first ‘diving’ experience was the Great White Shark Cage Diving in Gansbaai in 2000. It was on an old rickety small wooden boat dubbed by some as ‘the master of disaster’. The cage was a thin nearly wire round cage where at the most 2 divers could dive in at the same time. He sat on the wooden roof of the cabin and balanced as the boat swayed in the swell. That day he saw 8 sharks and even had the nose of the shark inside the cage. Back then the industry was very young and small and the biggest boats took 8 people maximum and there were only 5 operators.

This experience was very special to Dave as he had been obsessed with sharks since a little boy thanks to the film Jaws. Meeting the Great White Shark face to face was an inspiring moment and never to be forgotten.

Thanks to the film Jaws Great White Sharks are now admired (but also feared) and they are on the wanted list to view and photograph for 60,000+ tourists a year. This has developed into a huge industry now with 8 licensed operators in Gansbaai and 2 in False Bay and there is rarely a day when an operator does not go out due to lack of bookings. Great White Shark Cage Diving is the second most popular wildlife activity in South Africa after the Big 5 and as anyone can do this then this is definitely an activity which should not be missed when visiting this beautiful country.

2008

The Great White Adventure Centre at 1 Main Road in Gansbaai town was opened. This is the first and most noticeable building in town as you drive in and acts as a tourist booking office for Shark Cage Diving and other activities. The premises used to be home to Café on Main, a coffee shop with an information desk. When we took over we decided to close the coffee shop and upstairs gift shop and focus fully on tourism and the whale and shark industry of Gansbaai.

When a tourist walks into The Great White Adventure Center they can book accommodation, a shark dive or whale watching trip, get a restaurant referral and come away with a positive feel of Gansbaai. The outside of the building is an attraction to tourists and film crews alike. The breaching Great White Shark photo on the building and the text “Welcome to Gansbaai, Capital of the Great White Shark”, has been featured on many international documentaries.

With the opening of the Great White Adventure Centre, we bought 10 Kayaks and a 10 seater Landrover Game Viewer and started to run Eco trips for tourists. These experiences will always remain as fond memories as the Kayaking trips were world class and there is nowhere else in the world where you can kayak around the coast among Whales and Calves stop at a seal colony and do your own private tour of historic caves where you actually swim in crystal clear mineral water pools. The mountain trips were also spectacular with amazing views and wildlife. Unfortunately due to lack of support by the local tourism bureau and local Guesthouses we closed this business and sold the Kayaks and Landrover.

2010 – 2019

We have been steadily improving the businesses over the past years and have developed another two Self-Catering houses as part of the Roundhouse. The guesthouse now has a swimming pool and games centre and is very popular with Shark Divers and Whale Watching visitors.

I have also just launched a stunning new product to Gansbaai which is our Fatbike tours. Fatbikes are mountain bikes with extra wide tyres able to ride easily on soft sand. This has opened up our whole coastline and we are able to easily share this amazing environment to the world with our stunning world class beach from De Kelders to Hermanus as well as vast sand dunes rising from 185 meters above the beach.

Take a look at www.fatbiketours.co.za 

Want to Know More?

18 Years of Shark Diving Bookings

It was December 2000 when Dave Caravias moved to Gansbaai permanently and started work on building The Roundhouse Guesthouse.  You can learn more about the Roundhouse on the following site: www.theroundhouse.co.za. After a few months of operating The Roundhouse Guesthouse as a running B&B we decided to expand our company into the ever-growing diving and travel industry of South Africa and particularly Gansbaai.

2003

2003 Saw the birth of Sharkbookings.com and this has definitely been Dave’s baby as he nurtured this company from a self-built 12-page website to the world-class booking service. To summarise, Sharkbookings.com is a dive specialist in shark diving countrywide as well as many international destinations. This newly re-launched website sees Sharkbookings.com expanding into many new destinations worldwide covering Sharks and Rays.

2008

The Great White Adventure Centre at 1 Main Road in Gansbaai town was opened. This is the first and most noticeable building in town as you drive in and acts as a tourist booking office for Shark Cage Diving and other activities. The premises used to be home to Café on Main, a coffee shop with an information desk. When we took over we decided to close the coffee shop and upstairs gift shop and focus fully on tourism and the whale and shark industry of Gansbaai.

2010 – 2019

We have been steadily improving the businesses over the past years and have developed another two Self-Catering houses as part of the Roundhouse. The guesthouse now has a swimming pool and games centre and is very popular with Shark Divers and Whale Watching visitors.

We have also just launched a stunning new product to Gansbaai which is our Fatbike tours. Fatbikes are mountain bikes with extra wide tyres able to ride easily on soft sand. This has opened up our whole coastline and we are able to easily share this amazing environment to the world with our stunning world class beach from De Kelders to Hermanus as well as vast sand dunes rising from 185 meters above the beach.

Take a look at www.fatbiketours.co.za 

Want to Know More?