Need help in shark dive

[SeaHound]

Hello,

I am intending to do a shark dive in North Carolina sometime this month and I need a dive buddy. Anyone interested? Also if anyone can refer me to good shark dive operator there it would be helpful. I dont have any scuba gear so I will need to rent everything including a still camera.

Suggestions?

 

[herman]

Our diving is winding down for the season and most of the sharks are moving to warmer water but there may be a few still around. Are you expecting a "shark dive" like some of the resorts do? That is not what we do here. We dive and hope to see sharks while we are diving, quite often we do but it's not a sure thing. There are no feeding programs or effort to draw them in with food, our shark encounters are natural and based solely on the natural behavior of the sharks. We just happen to be lucky that the sandtigers around here seem to like divers.
You may be able to find someone on the NC board who will join you, there is a link below my sig. I have no idea what your diving experience is, but you need to be prepaired for our conditions. Our diving can be considerably more demanding than a lot of locations. Long 2-3 hr boat rides, 6ft+ seas, current and deep wrecks -100 to 130ft are all common. Seasickness is also common.

 

[SeaHound]

Thanks for the info Herman,

As for sharks I am not interested in feeding them. I just want to swim with them and take photos of them. I am an open water diver with 27 logged dives including night, and videography dives. the deepest I have gone is 70 ft. I have done some diving in rough out of a rubber boat so that is not a problem. I will be coming from DC and since this will be my first time in NC all the info that you are giving will come handy.

 

[BigWhiteSquare]

Gonna be kinda iffy getting to see some sharks this time of year. For someone with a little more experience I'd say try to get a ride with Olympus ( www.olympusdiving.com ) in Morehead City or Discovery ( www.discoverydiving.com ) in Beaufort out to the Papoose. But that's probably a little too deep yet for you, in the 120' range. It might be a better option to try Aquatic Safaris ( www.aquaticsafaris.com ) in Wilmington. The Wilmington area wrecks tend to be a little shallower, though I'm not sure which ones have the most potential for sharks. Maybe some of the Wilmington people could chime in on that.

For the real deal, almost a sure thing for seeing sharks, come here during the summer season and try to get a ride out to the Caribsea, which is visited by the Morhead City boats during the summer. Depth is about 85', and I've never been there when it didn't have some good sized sand tigers hanging around.

Frank

 

[RAD Diver]

I was out on the Papoose on Sat & we had 2 Sandtigers waiting at the tie in for us. Very cool, my wife & I had been out of Cape Fear to see the Sandtigers before in June so I had no problem with them, but the other 4 divers were nervous, but overcame that quickly. You can stay on top of the wreck (which is actually the bottom) & not be that deep. Less than 100 fsw.
We hit the U-352 for our 2nd dive & had a single Sandtiger there, but was very timid & I was the only one to see it, but my flash chased him off. The pic shows its pectoral fins quite low. We ran into each other as I was looking back for my wife(buddy) actually did'nt hit ,but was very close.

 

[divekraz]

Seahound. If you do a search for Divekraz you can see a short video of a shark encounter I had in Hatteras N.C.. There wasn't a single wreck we did of any decent size that didn't have a half dozen or more sharks on them. The wrecks we did in Hatteras were all in the fsw80-130 range. I have been on shark feeds in Roatan, Bahamas, Keys and had a great time with the sharks in Hatteras. The encounter was a little bit scary as this was a big shark 10' and I don't know what would've happened if my wife didn't turn me around when she did but this video will give you a up close and personal look at what's out there.

 

[fireflock]

The Wilmington area wrecks tend to be a little shallower, though I'm not sure which ones have the most potential for sharks. Maybe some of the Wilmington people could chime in on that.

Hyde, but I think it's getting too late in the season.

Here are a couple of videos from a fellow NCDiver to give an idea of what you have to look forward to:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQH9vFfGuEE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmxkSwka3Ic

Rich

 

[SeaHound]

Yes I checked out those vids. Very nice. Thats the kinda stuff I want to do.

So no winter divers there eh? Since you guys have a better visibility in winter I thought I wont have trouble finding dive buddies.