Article: Destination Spotlight: Where’s The World’s Greatest Shark Dive?

[diver 85]

Great dive.....made it Sept of 2011.......2 Tiger sharks came in, not too shabby-----nothing staged on that dive, pretty wild....

Pic of the 18 ft one:

Pic of the 14ft one....:

 

[drrich2]

Diver 85:

Nice shots and beautiful animals; must have made for some nice memories.

You said nothing staged, but in pic 2, isn't that guy holding out some bait?

Both those tiger sharks look like I'd want them to if I were in the water with them; well-fed. One thing I don't want to see is an emaciated tiger or great white shark coming at me...

Richard.

 

[diver 85]

Diver 85:

Nice shots and beautiful animals; must have made for some nice memories.

You said nothing staged, but in pic 2, isn't that guy holding out some bait?

Both those tiger sharks look like I'd want them to if I were in the water with them; well-fed. One thing I don't want to see is an emaciated tiger or great white shark coming at me...

Richard.

Just feeding them as usual, ---btw, the day we made the dives, DMs in predive briefing (talk) said "yadda yadda-this a shark dive but no Tiger Sharks will be present--it's been 3 weeks since any Tiger's have shown up on this dive"---how were they supposed to know what/how much they had been eating lately..AND, that was the 3rd shark dive from the resort that week--1st group went out Tuesday, 2nd group went out Wednesday & our's was the 3rd one of the week that Friday..Each nite @ dinner, the video was shown & no other Tiger's were present on those 1st 2 shark dives of the week.................On the 1st dive we made, the 14 ft presented itself & the DMs were ECSTATIC during the surface interval.....After the 2nd dive when the 14 ft'er stayed around AND the 18 ft'er showed up, all the DMs could have walked on the water back to Beqa Lagoon Resort.......As we finally decided(all guests present on those 2 dives that day were from Louisiana--the 1st 2 shark dives the groups were from some other parts of the US) it took the Tigers(of LSU) to get the Tiger(sharks) to appear....

Also got to 'pet' the 18'er on it's way by one time-it was the very tail end of it & I figured I had 2 or 3 people between it's mouth & myself when this happened.......You ought to see the video-----manager of BLR @ dinner that nite when he showed us the tape said it's one of the best shark videos they had made since he was there.........

 

[Thomthumb]

I have been there twice and done the Beqa shark dive. I didn't have any sharks try to knock me over to get to the chumsicle and pix came out alot better than a chumsicle feast.

 

[diver 85]

I have been there twice and done the Beqa shark dive. I didn't have any sharks try to knock me over to get to the chumsicle and pix came out alot better than a chumsicle feast.

Out of curiosity, were the TSs present on both dives??/.....

 

[mike black]

While I'd prefer it wild, a chance to be eye to eye to a BIG tiger shark would be just fine with me. If you look at it from another perspective, getting more people to enjoy and potentially care about sharks, is a good thing. Interest in conservation is NOT an automatic trait for divers, though I'm always surprised it isn't after the amazing encounters we get to have.

I guess I am a little biased as I lead groups to dive with tiger sharks in the bahamas, I love showing these animals to people and I think the first thread was pretty harsh. I have never done the Bull shark dive in Fiji, so I dont know how it goes, but we treat the animals with great respect. I Agree with Shasta that its good to give people the opportunity to come out into nature and see these animals it promotes awareness and that is the bigger picture. If you want to talk about aquariums and bringing the sea to people I will agree. But taking people to see sharks is jawsom.

---------- Post added October 19th, 2013 at 12:08 AM ----------

A common criticism of chumming to draw sharks for divers to see is that such observation is unnatural and it's 'more rewarding' to see them behaving naturally in unscripted scenarios.

Assuming they show up, and get close enough for a look and a photograph, maybe so. Many sharks would avoid humans without incentive to get close.

Another common argument in such threads is that if you don't see them now, you can see them later and it will be 'more rewarding.' Well, if you get in a lot of diving in the right spots that might be true. But a lot of people don't, and for them it may be 'now or never,' and they want to see a shark.

I get the impression the shark dive business draws a lot of patronage, so evidently it's rewarding for a lot of people.

I recently got to view nurse sharks and reef sharks 'naturally' diving off Key Largo, and that was fun. But given the chance, I'd probably do a shark feeding dive. I'd get closer, see more and could get closer photographs. It doesn't have to be an 'either/or' proposition; you can do both.
Richard.

I like your stance on shark diving, and if you are serious about going on a trip I would like to help. I am a professional shark diver, my name is Mike Black. I worked as a safety diver for five years in the Bahamas at tiger beach. I now book shark diving trips on numerous boats as a group leader and will be looking to fill some trips in the summer for tiger beach. Please visit my face book page to see some pic. https://www.facebook.com/jawsom.diving