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Cool jobs in a warm place
WHAT-TO-DO - NASSAU, CABLE BEACH & PARADISE ISLAND - JULY 2004
Cool jobs in a warm place
Some get paid to have fun
Waving food in front of 30 hungry sharks is just another part of an average work day for Bryan Cunningham, manager as well as a shark feeder and dive instructor at Nassau Scuba Centre. He?s been feeding sharks for three years and still enjoys the thrill of interacting with these animals. ?It?s a good rush, it doesn?t matter how long you?ve been doing it,? he says.
Anyone can have the opportunity to feed sharks, explains Cunningham. He refers to the shark suit adventure, offered by Nassau Scuba Centre, in which ?we take guests down, put them in chain mail and have them feed with us,? he says.
The company also offers a shark suit speciality programme, which consists of classroom work, videos and then a shark feed in the afternoon.
But the normal shark feed, where the feeder feeds the sharks while guests form a circle around and watch, is the most common shark dive, and is also offered by Stuart Cove?s Dive Bahamas, pioneers of shark diving in The Bahamas.
Originally from South Africa, Cunningham left his country and his banking job in 1996.
?I took a year off work to go travelling and haven?t got around to getting back yet,? he says.
His first destination was Israel, where he went to help some friends on a boat, ?and it turned out to be a dive boat. So I read a book, learned to dive, jumped in the water and went from there. I never planned on being a dive instructor,? he says.
From Israel, Cunningham moved into a job as a dive instructor in the Turks and Caicos, just south of the Bahama islands.
?I used to come over here (Nassau) when they were short staffed. I decided I liked the island, saw the shark feed and decided to come over,? he says. That was three years ago and was the beginning of a new era in his dive career.
First time fears
Cunningham started work with Nassau Scuba Centre as a dive instructor and videographer for the shark dives. His first opportunity to feed the sharks came as a surprise.
?We ended up with a shark feed booked and none of the feeders were at work that day. They knew I really wanted to get into it so they said ?off you go.? I was really nervous. I had been watching, and I had my theories.
?It got easier after that. Each one got easier and easier. But sitting on my own on the whole way out to the dive site that day, contemplating what I was actually doing?? He shakes his head. ?It was probably one of the biggest adrenaline rushes of my life.?
Although Cunningham was tossed into shark feeding by surprise, he had the necessary experience for the job.
?All our shark feeding training is done in-house. You start off by watching a feed, then you (work) as a videographer while they?re doing the feeds. You have to get in quite close and you learn a lot from the feeders while you?re doing that. Then each feeder trains the next feeder,? he says.
?You learn by experience. Each feeder has his own little tricks. You get bitten one way once, you learn how to not do that again,? he says.
For example, Cunningham explains that a golden rule of feeding is that arms are never held at more than 45 degrees. ?If a shark gets your arm and gets it behind your back, he can break it,? he says.
Tricks of the shark trade
?You can control how you disperse the sharks or how you excite them, depending on how good a show you want to put on,? says Cunningham. ?If you?re feeding quickly straight out of the bait box, you get all the sharks coming in closer. It gets a little hectic (especially if) you?ve got people feeding with you. You can spread (the sharks) out.? He explains that a feeder can start feeding away from the bait box to lure some of the sharks to another area.
?The other thing about sharks is that they have little pores on top that pick up electro-magnetic pulses that they get from the steel (chain mail). So if you hold one over its eyes and massage the top of the head with your thumbs, you?ll put it to sleep? you?re just sort of overriding their senses and it makes them totally docile.
?The more you do it, the more little tricks you try. Every now and then you get hurt and you calm right back down. You get a reality check once every couple of months,? says Cunningham.
There?s been heated ecological debate in recent years about the practice of shark feeding. Some people are opposed to it; some are in favour of it.
?I?m very much in favour of it,? says Cunningham. ?I think it does a lot to educate people about sharks. They?ve banned it in Florida. It?s legal to chum the water to catch sharks and kill them, but it?s illegal to chum the water to show sharks to people and educate them.
?I?m not in favour of feeding on the surface? when they go out in snorkel boats and throw fish on the surface, because I don?t like associating food with the surface,? he says. He feels it should be done in a controlled environment, and points out that the dive clubs here all agree to keep the bait underwater.
In spite of the challenges involved with shark feeding, Cunningham says that ?running a dive shop has been the biggest challenge.? He plans to one day go home and start a business exporting African artwork.
Animal trainer
When Lexion (Joe) Louissaint moved to The Bahamas in 1959 from Haiti, he didn?t plan to be a flamingo trainer. In fact, he had probably never even heard the term.
When he arrived in Nassau, Louissaint got a job at Ardastra Gardens, then owned by Headley Edwards, a Jamaican. Louissaint began cleaning and feeding the animals in the garden, including the flamingos, and eventually Edwards taught him to train the flamingos. He?s been doing it ever since.
Today, Louissaint is the animal trainer and head caretaker/feeder at Ardastra, in charge of about 50 flamingos, including 21 in the working group and 29 in the breeding group. But the road has not been without potholes.
Edwards died in 1978 and the garden deteriorated, says Louissaint. William Granger, who was executor of the will, took over the upkeep of the gardens, keeping Louissaint on to help him run things. But times were tough, and there was not a lot of staff. Guests would come in and help Louissaint to feed the animals.
In 1982, Norman Solomon and Jeanne Thompson bought the garden and invested the money needed to restore the property and to turn the gardens into a zoo. Today it is a well-run tropical garden with 51?2 acres of rich vegetation and exotic animals.
After 44 years on the job, Louissaint can be proud that he has been a big part of it. His favourite part of his job is making people feel happy.
?You need three things to be an animal trainer,? says Louissaint. ?You need respect, love and patience. I developed those on the job.
?I love parrots, and training parrots,? he says. His favourite parrot, named Toby, is ?number one,? he explains. Toby is the first animal Louissaint takes care of when he arrives at work in the morning. Then he checks and feeds the flamingos.
Marching flamingos
The exotic marching pink flamingos are probably the most famous residents of Ardastra Gardens. They are brought in from Inagua in the southern Bahamas at three weeks of age. After three months, Louissaint begins training them, and training lasts about six months. He trains them in groups, he says, and then they teach each other.
Once trained, the flamingos perform three shows daily, under the instruction of Louissaint. They march in unison, obeying his signals. Sometimes they make mistakes, he says, ?but we have to accept that. We just try to collect (gather) them.?
The future looks bright for the animals of Ardastra.
?We have started to grow flamingos in the zoo now,? Louissaint says proudly. In 2001, after many years of hard work and research, two flamingo chicks were born. Two more followed in 2002 and two more in 2003.
?When you do things through love and patience you never get tired of doing them,? he says.
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