The land of the lost sharks.
As the apex predators of the sea.
Sharks have spent over 400 million years maintaining a balance of marine life.
And when they disappear, studies have shown entire ecosystems have collapsed.
Here off the southeast coast of South Africa.
Over a third of the world's shark species converge in large numbers.
So finding three different lost species of sharks here is like trying to find a needle
in a stack of needles.
And these waters are just as lethal as the sharks.
The rocky seabed makes for powerful, unpredictable currents capable of knocking a
diver around like a dinner bell.
It's these conditions that may have led to these sharks avoiding detection.
It's my first move is to get my team into the water.
Find a healthy reef and get a feel for the conditions before we begin a targeted search
for our three lost sharks.
Two, three push.
But getting into this water takes work.
Okay, let's do the other one on three.
Ready? One, two, three.
Push.
There are no tourist friendly marinas here, so we have to drag these rigid hull
inflatable boats across the sand.
Keep going. We're good.
All right, let's grab the trucks.
Good. One of the things that.
Makes these adventures what they are is everything's more challenging.
Forward. Big wave.
Big wave. Hold, hold.
Hold it. Oh.
We're in. We're in. We're in.
Passing through waves.
Now you can see it's pretty hectic to get out to drive here, but we are getting out.
And that's the exciting thing.
Next stop, shark.
All three lost sharks were last seen in these waters.
So I'm eager to get a look beneath the surface.
We've been trying to find something to give us a dive site, and it's taken a while.
But as we got out here, well, big shark.
Big shark right there. Oceanic whitetip.
Whoa. Look at that.
Oceanic Whitetips are known for their signature rounded, white tipped fins.
They are fiercely aggressive, growing to 13ft long, with a reputation for feeding on
shipwreck survivors.
And that's literally the very first animal that we've seen out here proving our three
lost sharks exist.
We'll be capturing the clearest, highest rise footage possible.
So we've adapted cutting edge detection tech, including low light cams, camera traps,
ultraviolets, submersible rods and drones, not to mention a fearless camera crew.
Mitch Long, Mark Romanov and Johnny Harrington have had my back for years.
It's how we warm up for every day.
We've located a reef there.
Ideal for sharks since they provide food, shelter and protection.
One three, one, three.
One, two, three.
This water is dark, almost more swamp than sea.
And the current is already moving us away from the boat.
I've instructed the camera team to stay within view, which isn't more than 30ft or
so. And you never know what's lurking just.
Out of sight. Look at these absolutely massive potato cod.
Are a member of the Grouper family and they're heavily, heavily fished.
So they come into an area like this where there's these massive fish that are
completely untouched and unafraid of man means that we're truly in a wild environment.
Oh, look over there. Look over there.
Sir Geoffrey here first.
All of a sudden, this beautiful, great thing came shooting through.
But a beautiful animal is the one we're looking for.
He's right behind you, Mark.
Silvertips are powerful apex predators that can reach ten feet long, weighing up to £350.
They're known for boldly pursuing divers.
And good luck escaping a hunter like this guy down through Silvertips all around us who
senses your heart beating from 300ft away.
Looks like the first silvertip was a scout.
Now they're emerging from every angle.
And where is Johnny?
You brought me. Have you seen Johnny?
Now diversity.
I don't know where he is.
Driving off alone.
In this murky swirl of silver tips.
Wild currents and an unpredictable environment.
A diver could be lost without a trace.
Johnny, you could hear him.
You better shut up, man.
Let's head out. Rejoin you on the surface?
Tony On the surface. All right.
This is Stacy. Yeah, Yeah.
Thankfully, Johnny is okay, but it's a blunt reminder that we're in one of the most
challenging dive zones in the world.
Dude, it was ripping down there.
It was ripping.
So you just came up from our.
First dive, and honestly, it was a bit of a let down.
We had a little bit of a scare where we lost our cameraman Johnny for a bit and it's just
because the Viz is so bad, but it's not all negative.
We found a great reef and there is life on it and there are sharks.
Now I need to pinpoint the perfect habitat to search for one of our lost sharks.
The northern area of the Lost Coast is this wild region where an ocean upwelling mixes
with the continental shelf.
It's kind of this washing machine of habitats.
And in this area.
There is a high.
Diversity.
Of species.
Including lost sharks.
Like the Whitetip.
Weasel shark.
The white tips in the Hemigaleidae family are otherwise known as weasel sharks, and all
weasel sharks prefer shallow coastal waters.
The only known specimen of the Whitetip weasel shark was captured in 1984, right here
in Coos Bay. They're unique from almost any other shark due to the single black tip on
the second dorsal fin, while the other fins all have white tips similar to its shark
cousins. I'm going to pepper this entire ocean area with baited cameras.
We're going to make the world's first free floating braves.
Braves are baited remote underwater video devices that we are crafting out of PVC pipe
with GPS locators.
I'm hoping to monitor a variety of depths.
Plus, I'm going to anchor a few Braves on the reef itself.
So we found a reef offshore, and it's a high spot that comes up.
So this is our best.
Bet to cover all odds.
And so here we go.
This is the first one going in with our new fangled brave design.
We're deploying more than 30 floater Braves, and they're already getting some action now
that all the floater Braves are deployed.
Time to dive down and mount the anchor brush.
Keep it on my car.
The water is dark and murky, but there's just enough light for me to recognize the
silvertips rushing in.
These silvertips are completely swarming around us.
They're in a pack mentality and they're completely frenzied up.
This powerful current is pulling all of us right into them.
They can come from below, which are on top of you.
And in this low visibility, they're feeling particularly cocky and confident.
These little guys aren't going to take your arm, but in large numbers they can start to
become a threat. We're surrounded and with no visuals on the reef yet, we've got to drop
deeper and deeper.
Something's off.
Our diver alarms are ringing like crazy.
The bottom of deeper than my dive profile.
We've dropped more than 40ft beyond our target depth.
Any deeper?
And our mixed air turns toxic.
So we just hit the bottom of the reef.
And the first thing I've got to do is deploy the deep water front.
And look.
Who just showed up for.
Dinner. Got big, feisty bull shark right over there.