Dive with the great white sharks for a charity event supporting research for Leukemia

Friday, 17 June 2005, Southampton: State Securities celebrates its 25th anniversary this year and staff are fund raising for Southampton based charity, Leukaemia Busters (reg. charity number 1010957). For Kevin Dew, State Securities Account Manager, diving with Great White sharks was a life long ambition and whilst on holiday in South Africa he decided a shark dive was the perfect opportunity to combine this with raising vital funds for charity.

Following recent press coverage of a near miss with a Great White just before Kevin’s twelve day trip to South Africa, work colleagues thought he was crazy to go diving with sharks through choice ! However, having waited years for the chance Kevin couldn’t wait to get into the water with the Great White.

The location chosen for the dive was a channel between Dyer Island and Geyser Rock called ‘Shark Alley’, just south of the town of Gansbaai. “Catching our first glimpse of Great Whites several metres from the boat was fantastic and coming within a foot of them in the dive cage was completely awe-inspiring.

At nearly 4 metres long, the sharks were very different to what you might expect, they were extremely powerful but not aggressive and even though they had been drawn to the boat with the promise of a free meal, they still appeared very composed and somewhat wary of us”, Kevin enthused.

Kevin’s sponsored shark dive raised a tremendous £250 for Leukaemia Busters. The charity’s mission is to conduct research into and develop new, improved and safer treatments for leukaemia and related conditions. Kevin added, “It was great to be able to raise money for Leukaemia Busters whilst fulfilling one of my life’s ambitions. I’ve already started saving so I can go again !”