'Nurse' Jackie...

[sharky60]

...a little public service announcement...Scuba Tony is reporting on his scuba reports on Cozumel Radio Online that there is a 5'(ish) Nurse shark in the
Cedral Wall/Santa Rosa area that is becomming a little friendly to divers...Tony has named her Nurse Jackie, after the TV show.

Apparently folks have been feeding her lion fish and like some grouper & eels on the reef,
she is starting to come around looking for a free meal when she sees divers about.

For those of you shark weary, if you encounter her, don't freak.

Tony says if she is headed straight for you, put out a fin and
she will most likely bump it and move on once she sees she is not getting anything to eat.

Sharks bump objects like dogs sniff objects, this is not necessarily an aggressive move.

I would suggest keeping your hands close to yourself if she is around. A quick fluttering hand could be mistook
for a floundering fish , other than that, enjoy the encounter and give us a post if you see her.

 

[Rescue Diver68]

One about that size swam right underneath of us at Cedral last week. It appeared curious but nothing more. She checked us out and kept on moving. We were watching a big turtle at the time when she came over to visit. I took a picture of her but she was so close that I cut off part of her nose and her tail in the photo. I did not see anyone feed her on any of our dives. She is cool!

 

[jfcl01]

yup...that's where I was last week when a nurse shark really kind of pursued me, made a couple passes even though I was finning backwards to increase the distance between us, and bumped me before it went back to whatever it was doing on the edge of a coral head, where it was when I initially passed several feet over it.

 

[Dirty-Dog]

I'm thinking maybe this isn't such unusual behavior for nurses. Maybe she wants to check your temp...

 

[azscubadude]

...

For those of you shark weary, if you encounter her, don't freak.

Tony says if she is headed straight for you, put out a fin and
she will most likely bump it and move on once she sees she is not getting anything to eat.

Sharks bump objects like dogs sniff objects, this is not necessarily an aggressive move.

Aug/Sept trip we were riding the current on Punta Tunich when we came upon huge nurse shark (biggest I've ever seen) that was out and about.. casually riding the current ahead of us.

It turned and went toward one of our divers, did a couple loops around him as close as a few inches away on each 360, didn't bump him or anything and then just casually swam off. It was interesting to watch and didn't cause us any concern.

We saw several on that dive. Here is a photo of another on the same dive..

Cozumel-August 2011 (Underwater) - Prescott Outdoors' Photos | SmugMug

 

[firstdive2005]

This shark laid in my arms for a couple seconds, just laid there. I was over the reef about 15ft with my sausage deployed and it can up from the reef. Wildest thing ever for me there. I just petted it for a few strokes while my dive buddy Lisa freaked out. She finally took the picture after she quit trying to eat her reg. I dont know how to post the pic. Five seconds later a huge eagle ray stopped in front of us and chewed on a conch for at least 2 minutes that was amazing too.

 

[Jackie]

I saw my namesake last month.....