Shark Dive

On Friday, I went on the shark awareness dive with Dive Safaris. There were about 10 of us on the dive, but all the others were from the Royal Caribbean cruise ship or tourists staying in a hotel. I was really surprised that not more people from AUC wanted to go, but I guess there aren't that many that are both certified and have been diving in the last two years. John just finished his certification though this past Saturday and wants to go, so i guess at least he will next time.

In any case, the dive was definitely worth doing. It only costs $55 since they give students the local discount. It's about a 15 minute boat ride out to the dive site and then after a briefing, they get you underwater pretty quick. You descend down a line to just under 60 feet and then make your way over to the feeding area. They have been doing this for about 8 years now, so by the time I got over to where they do the feeding, 3 or 4 sharks had already started swimming around the area.

They have everyone lay down behind a bunch of cinderblocks which you can hold on to. Unfortunately, but for other divers' safety, we're not allowed to touch the sharks. So, you just lay there for about 30 minutes while the guy in the center feeds them. You can, of course, take pictures though...you don't just sit there and do nothing the whole time. The sharks do get very close though! You could easily reach out and touch them and one of them almost took off my goggles when I wasn't paying attention!

The two largest sharks which come around (Big Mama and Spot) both showed up, as did 5 others. They ranged in size from about 3-7 feet. A lot of people said I was crazy for diving with sharks, but it's really not unsafe at all. In 8 years, they haven't had a single incident, and this is with one of the top 20 most dangerous shark species in the world (reef shark) out of over 300 species! They really act more like dogs than anything. They just swim around and at most, when they get a little fiesty, nudge at you or swim between your legs or something. Even when they were fighting the feeder guy to get at the shark food though, they never bit, just nudged.

You can find many more pictures from the day at my flickr link to the right. All of these are pictures from the dive, not fake as some people have suggested!!!