My First Shark Encounter - Help Me Identify the Species. St. Maarten, Caribbean

[00wabbit]

Hi guys,

I was diving on Saturday in St. Maarten with Caribbean Dive College. We were diving on Cable Reef at about 45ft. The coral reef extends up to near the surface. Probably about 20 ft below the surface. The dive master first saw the shark at the top of the reef feeding on small fish. I didn't see it then. About 10 minutes later we saw the shark coming straight at us near the bottom of the reef. At first I was fine with it and then the shark came closer and closer and me breathing started to elevate a bit. It was an awesome site to see a shark coming head on like that with the blue water in the background. About 8ft from us the shark turned slightly and passed by us (that's when I got the picture) Then the shark did a 180 and headed back out.

I forgot to ask the DM about the shark species. I think from my limited research it is a Caribbean Reef Shark. It was between 4-5ft long from nose to tail. Maybe about 9-10" in diameter. It wasn't a very large shark. It has dark coloring along the edges of the fins.

Below are the pictures I took of it.



Thanks
00wabbit

 

[jar546]

Carcharhinus perezii

But maybe I'm wrong

 

[danpass]

Looks like a Blacktip shark. I've seen them at Molasses Reef in Key Largo as well.

Great pics.

 

[diversteve]

Carcharhinus perezii

But maybe I'm wrong

That would be my call also - due to the dorsal fin "shading". I've seen a lot of them. One to compare it to:

 

[00wabbit]

Yeah. Looks about the same as that photo.

 

[moosicman]

Definitely a Caribbean Reef. As an aside, a great site for photos of these and other beauties is oceanicdreams.com which is the site of Wolfgang Leander (if you are not aware of him, you SHOULD be).