JÉRÔME DELAFOSSE FACES DOWN FEAR
The environmentalist takes a gamble to film great whites – with no cage
Just off the Cape of Good Hope, we’d lost the diving cage to a raging storm. The prospect of jumping into the water without one, surrounded by great whites, was daunting, but I couldn’t afford to go home without this footage. We baited the water. As I prepped in the boat a 1.5m fin came up alongside us, and the huge shark began thrashing around. I plunged to the sea-bed with two teammates, but the vast shark just swam gently by. At that point, I knew I had the story.