We did the shark dive with Waihuka less than a week ago and we all had a great time. We had the pre-briefing, which was very clear. We were told what we could do and not do, like no touching the sharks, stay behind the DM, never to get between the DM and the sharks, to hold the line all the way to the bottom, and that the first people would stand behind and the later people to join would kneel in front. If anyone let go of the line and drifted off, the dive would be over for everyone. To us, it seemed they were very concerned with safety, rather than having a lack of concern for safety.
We went dressed in our wetsuits on the rainy, cool day, but our assembled kits were in front of us on the floor of the boat, ready to put on. We had our group of 14 plus a few others, so our boat was full. We had no issues putting on our BC's and backrolling in where we were sitting. I am a little weak, so they helped me lift the BC/tank to above and behind me where I could easily put it on.
We did not get to dive with the sharks before the they fed them, as we saw on their promotional video, for some reason. We didn't ask why. We immediately went into formation into our 2 lines. Since I was on the left side of the front row, I was surprised that the bucket was only a few feet in front of me. I'm not sure if he meant to throw it there or the current took it there right away. So the sharks were right in front of and above me constantly. Once they were done, we were allowed to swim around, but most of the sharks were gone. The grouper and fish were still hanging around, though.
We then watched our video and bought a Master DVD. All in all, we had a fun experience!
