Among the most intriguing dives for any licensed scuba diver is the shark dive. During a lot of dives in the Caribbean, seeing a shark is actually an unusual incident and considered a benefit considering that they do not tend to stay around very long if they are spotted anyhow. One quick glance and they are entered the range. This is why the shark dives in the Bahamas were developed. It’s a way to offer daring scuba divers an opportunity to see numerous sharks up close. These shark dives are available in both Nassau and Freeport in the Bahamas. I had a chance to do among these shark dives during a dive journey to Nassau in the island of Providence.
I chose the scuba operator Dive although Stuart Cove’s also offers shark dives. It was a 2 tank dive and when we got to the very first dive website called Williams Wreck, there were currently a few Caribbean reef sharks circling beneath the boat. The music from the film Jaws began to play in my head. The very first dive was a reef website with a little wreck with adequate marine life consisting of the sharks that were nearby. They came close to the divers but not too close, much like barracudas. Deepest depth here was 69 feet and the duration of the dive was 36 minutes. The ascent was interesting since at the 15 feet security stop, the sharks existed checking us out. At one point, there was a shark in between myself and the boat. I was questioning how I was going to get back with the shark in the way however it eventually moved out of the way.
After the first dive, we visited the dive site close by that would be the location for the actual shark feeding. This dive website was appropriately named Shark Street. We were informed to use a little more weight than normal since we were to spend most of our time during our 2nd dive at the bottom. I included 3 more pounds to my weight belt. Once again, we could see the sharks in the water throughout the surface area interval however this time, there were more of them. We were advised to descend to the bottom as rapidly as possible and as soon as at the bottom about 50 feet down, we were gathered by among the divemasters into a single line semi-circle in a sandy open location. As soon as we were in formation, another divemaster descended from the boat. This was the one who would do the feeding and he was carrying a bucket of deals with for the sharks. Nearly instantly, over 20 sharks came out of no place. My heart began to pound with enjoyment at this point.
The divemaster with the food was wearing a chain mesh suit and gloves over his wetsuit. He settled at the bottom about ten feet or so in front of us. For the next 30 minutes, he managed a feeding frenzy as the sharks averaging about 12 feet in length pertained to him from all angles. He used a steel rod to feed the sharks. In some cases he would in fact tease the sharks with the rod prior to feeding them. The sharks darted around like torpedoes. I was impressed by how fast and nimble they were. Meanwhile, a 3rd divemaster neighbored videotaping the whole scene.
We were informed to keep our arms folded in front of us in order not to confuse any shark who may error our limbs as lunch. The sharks came so near us that in some cases they made and bumped contact with a few divers. One shark actually came into the feeding location from behind me and its stomach brushed the top of my head. Now that was definitely an experience I’ll always remember! We were told that these sharks were just interested in the food that the divemaster had rather than us. These sharks have actually been conditioned to these feedings twice each day all week long so they were quite utilized to the regular now. We all hoped that this was true. A couple of sharks circled right in front of our semi-circle and when their tails were out in front people, some divers including myself couldn’t withstand reaching out to touch them although we were not suppose to.
In addition to the sharks, there were also these two groupers who parked themselves in front of our semi-circle as they viewed all the activity. They didn’t seem to have any worry of the sharks or divers at all and at one point, one of these groupers really darted in and took the food from the divemaster’s rod prior to any of the sharks did.
When the divemaster ran out of food, he tipped the bucket over on its side and almost on hint, all the sharks swam off. It’s like they knew that the feeding had ended and for that reason had no more interest in remaining. When they all left, we still had a long time left to search the sand bottom for any shark teeth prior to returning back to the boat. Obviously, most of us ultimately did buy the video of our shark dive when we got back to the dive store. I have actually played this video to a lot of my non-diving good friends who simply enjoyed in horror and shock. They just could not understand why anyone would wish to delve into the water with sharks around. Of course, experienced scuba divers have a much better understanding of shark habits than the typical person but it’s constantly fun to amuse my non-diving good friends with this video. The shark dive is definitely one of the most memorable and interesting dives a scuba diver will ever do.