It is 50 years since the publication of the book Blue Meridian: The Search for the Great White Shark by famed natural history writer Peter Matthiessen. The book chronicled the making of the film Blue Water, White Death, which also hit the screens in 1971. Fifty years later, the book and the film raise fascinating questions about the species today. With the benefit of hindsight, it seems perplexing that the crew made its first attempt to find white sharks by following whaling vessels off Durban instead of heading straight to the Cape. But, as the species’ recent disappearance from False Bay suggests, white sharks are never permanent residents.