Previous
Lunching with sharks
Dive- Lunching with sharks WBF08
Lunching with sharks
Nothing prepares you for a shark feeding dive
There are very few occasions when you find yourself wishing that the waters of The Bahamas were not so clear, but getting ready to jump off the back of aboat into the middle of a dozen circling sharks is definitely one of them.
Of course, when you go on a shark dive off the coast of Grand Bahama, you expect the creatures to be nearby, but actually having to drop 45 feet through an honour guard of the ocan's top predators just to get to the seabed is more than most people bargain for.
These are Caribbean reef sharks, which grow up to nine feet long and eat mainly sick or wounded fish. It's the "mainly" that sets the nerve-ends tingling. Two dive companis offer shark feeding dives: UNEXSO (Underwater Explorers Society) and Xanadu Undersea Adventures.
UNEXSO, which pioneered shark diving in the 1980s, goes out Wednesdays and Saturdays, Xanadu on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. The sharks love Saturdas, says Xanadu's Ray Lightbourne," because they get fed twice."
It seems to take no time at all to get to the dive site, which is called Shark Junction. Because they associate the boat with food, sharks start gathering even before the engines are turned ff, and there is always a collective jolt among the divers when the first triangular fin breaks the surface of the water.
The divemaster explains the rules, the most important of which is: if a shark swims past, don't try to pet it. The gesture might be aken as a threat, or a pale white hand flapping in the water could be mistaken for an injured fish and trigger a bite reflex.
In fact, although divers are allowed to take down their own cameras, any hand movement at all is discouraged, because the shark are fed by hand and tend to interpret the slightest gesture as an invitation to snack.
After a final equipment check everyone enters the water and swims down to a sunken recompression chamber. The sharks keep their distance, but are obviously getting exited.
More people are killed every year by deer than die from shark attacks-a reassuring statistic that becomes progressively less comforting or credible when there is a real live shark swimming at you with its mouth open.
It's nerve-wracking when it hppens but the shark always veers aside at the last moment.
For the feeding, everyone lines up, kneeling or sitting with their backs to the recompression chamber. A shark going after food is not too concerned how it gets there, so the solid surface of thechamber is a reassuring insurance against being knocked over.
The feeder has no such protection, but does wear a crash helmet and a 10-pound chain-mail suit. In one hand he carries a plastic tube like an oversized Pez dispenser, which ejects one herringat a time. Taking the fish in his other hand, he draws it through the water in a graceful arc-like a matador with his cape-that lures one of the circling sharks into an attack. The trick, says Ray Lightbourne of Xanadu, is to release the herring before th feeding lunge.
It all happens only a few feet away, and hungry sharks, oblivious to anything other than herring, brush past or sometimes even bump those watching the show.
The elegance of the feeder's movements contrasts with the violence of the sharksas they snatch at the herring, or fight each other over a fallen morsel. Maneaters or not, it's obvious that these are fierce predators, deserving of respect.
All too soon it's over-the last herring eaten and the sharks, reluctantly, departing. Back on te boat there is an uncontrollable outbreak of spontaneous grins, everyone sharing the adrenaline rush and sense of privilege that comes from having been so close to some of the most misunderstood, mythologized creatures on earth.
CONTACT INFORMATION
E-Mail: Click here
Internet: https://
Disclaimer:
Information in editorial and listings is subject to change at any time.