I was very surprised when I started diving with Sharks after moving from OC how close them came, infact it gave me a good dose of the fear. I was unprepared for the Sharks more inquisitve behaviour due to the lack of bubbles. Has anyone else experience this as well? I was filming the sharks, the combination of electronic signals and my racing heart rate + no bubbles lead to some hair raising moments for me.
I put this down to the Rebreather since sharks are normally very distant when I have dived OC!
Hello TD, yes I have the same experience. Sharks become either more curious or a bit more aggressive towards me when I am diving CCR, more so even, I believe than when I dived SCR. I have had many big sharks come in for a good long look at me as I think they are curious what kind of big fish is in their territory. I can hear OC divers blowing bubbles before I see them, so imagine how far away a shark can detect a bunch of OC divers. I have seen some 6-7ft grey reefs in places like Ambergrize Caye in Belize, where nobody had seen one in years. I saw one at the beginning of almost every dive there, also saw an equally rare very large, very old turtle there too.
The effect is even more pronounced in remote places like Papua New Guinea. I once dived on a seamount way out in Milne Bay where on a single dive, I saw several hammers, a big silvertip, many grey reefs, a 12ft sand tiger and a HUGE 15ft+ oceanic manta. Oh, and there were 10 other CCR divers in the water, try to imagine a similar result with 10 OC divers on a site. My avatar picture was taken at the end of that dive, also had killer viz, probably my favorite dive ever.
I have been bumped, circled and otherwise menaced by sharks in a variety of ways. But I am convinced they mean mostly to test you to see if you are a threat. If you maintain a proper, submissive posture towards them and avoid direct eye contact, they almost always move on. Some photographers wind up provoking shark bumps due to their head forward posture and probably also because of the protruding camera and bright flash.
Of course all bets are off if there are large numbers of them, in which case they, grey reefs in particular, behave very, very aggressively. And some conditions are probably too risky to manage. I have been chased out of the water by a very aggressive grey reef on a solo night dive in Northern PNG. I would not recommend solo CCR night dives in sharky places, 2 divers minimum for me to do a CCR night dive in any place near deep water. There is always strength in numbers when diving with sharks as they are ambush predators and always looking for an advantage. In some parts of the world night dives of any kind are prohibited, like the Galapagos. Much as love sharks, I would hate to encounter a big Galapagos shark at night on CCR by myself.
Mostly, CCR has allowed me to blend in more with the scenery and thus camouflaged, I can watch fish behaving more naturally than say at a scheduled shark feed. Getting closer to sharks and other big fish was one of the main reasons I decided to move to CCR and I certainly have not been disappointed... -Andy
