Scuba diving with a pair of sandbar sharks

[Hetland]

I've got a handful of shark videos I'll be transferring over to youtube in the next few weeks. The video below was shot on some unpublished numbers in Pensacola. We had dove the spot a week before, and had basically the same behavior from a single sandbar.

Scuba diving with a pair of sandbar sharks - YouTube

 

[smellzlikefish]

I've had sandbars get a little squirrely, but that curious behavior is just weird! Perhaps they were associating the speargun with a food source? That looks like an incredibly spot to dive!

 

[Hetland]

I've found them to be territorial. The previous week, at the same location, we were not spearfishing, and I had a single sandbar do the same thing. In this dive, half of what you see took place before any fish were shot, and the numbers aren't published, so I'm guessing it doesn't see a lot of divers.

That said, we've simply pulled the trigger on a speargun (as a test) and had sharks show up within a minute or two (sound travels faster than smell underwater) only to have them leave in a rush when a fishing boat shows up at an adjacent reef or wreck. I constantly find myself comparing them (sharks) to dogs. It's a privileged to be in the water with such wonderful creatures.

 

[smellzlikefish]

Oceanic whitetips usually won't leave divers alone, but I've seen them completely ignore divers to prefer chasing nearby fishing boats. They aren't stupid. If you have a speargun in an area where lots of spearing occurs, they take notice.

 

[Hetland]

Oceanic whitetips usually won't leave divers alone, but I've seen them completely ignore divers to prefer chasing nearby fishing boats. They aren't stupid. If you have a speargun in an area where lots of spearing occurs, they take notice.

I love diving with sharks, but I'll admit bulls in low viz make me nervous. Oceanic whitetips on the other hand make me nervous in any conditions

I'm sorta glad they don't frequent my neck of the woods