Diving With Sharks

[Blackcrusader]

From my experience, there's no universal standard of practice when doing feeding dives with sharks. I am skeptical of the "only wear black" rule, and I suspect that's a rule that the operator came up with out of an abundance of caution. I have always worn my brightly-colored fins.

I was in Maldives last month and every dive there were Tiger sharks around. Of course the feeding station as well. Guides and others did not wear full wetsuits, one guide uses strobes for shots, and many people wore bright colors.

This is how I dive.... never been an issue with the sharks. This photo take by my dive buddy I have been diving with for 10 years.

 

[scubaozy]

I was in Maldives last month and every dive there were Tiger sharks around. Of course the feeding station as well. Guides and others did not wear full wetsuits, one guide uses strobes for shots, and many people wore bright colors.

This is how I dive.... never been an issue with the sharks. This photo take by my dive buddy I have been diving with for 10 years.


View attachment 878422

Where is your left leg?

 

[Blackcrusader]

Some shark species "size each other" to establish dominance and this is done by showing off their size horizontally. By establishing vertical position, your body language does not provoke or challenge, thus less chance of aggression. Whether you buy or not, message from your posture is, I am not challenging nor looking like your food.
Beside, on a vertical position, it is easier to do 180 deg turn to keep your eye on the shark.

Recommendations - SharkSchool™ | Interactive shark diving and education

There are things that should be done or avoided when being among sharks, likewise there are ways how to interfere when someone is in trouble in the vicinity of a shark. Recommendations are only as good as the respective tests and experiments have shown to be.

www.sharkschool.org

 

[Blackcrusader]

Where is your left leg?

Seems a Tiger Shark ate it. lol

In this video listen to the end. Other divers noted there were several Tiger sharks swimming around us.

 

[Blackcrusader]

I AM aware that completely breaking trim is preferred by some divers around sharks so they can visually reference their whole body which I can somewhat understand.

This is a loaded post but I’m curious to hear your thoughts.

Trim? Well the idea that one has to be always horizontal in the deep blue is not true.
Just back from another epic dive trip in the Maldives. At times in the open ocean away from feeding areas you might get encircled or tracked by sharks mainly tiger sharks. Threshers are never an issue for divers.

In this video a diver in my group did not look behind him. He was tracked by a Tiger shark which was not likely to have attacked him. I made some noise the and the Tiger came to me and circled me. Just a curious shark and look at the fish on it's nose not bothered at all.

 

[Blackcrusader]

On this dive I spotted a Great Hammerhead which are an endangered species. I turned on my camera thinking this would be the direct the hammerhead returned from after it's first passing by. I was right.

One of the guides wears orange shorts and another guide uses white free diving fins.

 

[Blackcrusader]

At Tiger Zoo site I just stayed behind the divers watching from fixed positions. Tuna heads are placed and covered by rock no hand feeding is done. There were times when the Tiger sharks cruise very close to the divers watching the feeding area and they do circle around as you can see in the second video.

The guides were fine as I have done many shark dives and they are comfortable with me being with them.