On a recent weekday, I was able to snag a coveted seat aboard one of the AWSC’s charters. We cast off from a small pier tucked away in Ryder’s Cove, a small tidal inlet tucked behind the Cape Cod National Seashore. It was a beautiful summer day, and anticipation was running high. An overhead spotter plane directed us toward two separate sharks—these skittish fish disappeared into the murky depths within seconds of our arrival. Our sightings were just enough to catch a glimpse of the sharks’ size, and just enough to show us how quickly they can both appear and disappear. Apparently, the sharks have been feeling shy this season; in years past, they have been known to swim alongside boats for several minutes at a time.
But that’s the point of a shark safari—or any safari, for that matter. What you don’t see is just as important as what you do see. Even if you aren’t spoiled with a cinematic sighting of a white shark, you walk away from these charters with a sense of the interconnectedness of nature. You get a unique perspective of the ever-shifting sandbars of the Cape Cod National Seashore; huge flocks of tern seabirds fly alongside your boat across the waves, seals bob their heads in and out of the water.
For a long time, we were spoiled with the notion that Cape Cod was a one-dimensional beach destination—where humans could come for vacation, extract a certain experience from the landscape, and return home unbothered. Now, with the prevalence of a rebounding shark population in this region, we are reminded that the planet is not a stage for us, but a vast matrix of predators and prey in which we are only a small part.
“I hope that everyone walks away with a new appreciation for the species,” said Poirier. “I’ve seen people watching sharks with tears in their eyes. Being that close to nature is a powerful and eye-opening experience.”
And that’s the overarching goal here: education. What the charters of Cape Cod may not know they have in common with the tiger trackers of Ranthambore and the guides of the Okavango Delta is that they are all on a mission to protect and de-stigmatize these apex predators, to show that tigers, lions, and now sharks, are not the enemy. These are not the bloodthirsty killers that Jaws would lead us to believe—they are a beautiful and essential part of our natural world.
How to book
As with most safaris, a shark charter dozen’t come cheap. The 2023 price for a three-hour charter with the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy, also called the Chatham Shark Center, will set you back $2,500 (plus crew tips) for a maximum of six guests. But considering that price includes an overhead spotter plane, it’s a fair price. (And as the AWSC is a nonprofit, a portion of your trip counts as a tax deduction.) Charters run from July through mid-October, weather permitting.
