Shark Dive

[Mario S Caner]

Cool story about the Diver getting mistaken for the meal... "hey where's the cream filling? comes to mind. Is there any way you could track him down and get him to join the boards?

When people talk about shark attacks, Jaws comes to mind. Hollywoods depiction of the Carcharodon Carcharias is perhaps forever destined to be feared. Truthfully a hungry 3000+ pound carnivor with sharp teeth is scary thought. Here are some facts though: There are a little over 7 Great White attacks per year throughout the world. This number in perspective far exceeds the number of people killed while bowling every year! What else is interesting is that 42% of the worldwide attacks happen here in Sunny California. To put that into perspective, Australia accounts for 20% and South Africa accoounts for 10%. Now also consider that a White's bite can take off 50lbs of meat in one attack, and that one quarter of all attacks end in a fatality. But having said all that, the last thing to take into consideration before paranoia sets in on all of your dives from this day forward is that the vast majority of these attacks are done by accident, towards spearfishermen, surfers and swimmers. NOT DIVERS!

 

[DeepSeaDan]

Mario is right...too many deepseas. Being the junior man on the board I will dash to the nearest giant clam shell & morph into "deepsea dan".

That is my plan.

D.S.D.

 

[Mario S Caner]

Good choice, and very gentlemanly of you. Your comradery is noted. Let it be known that from this day forward you shall be known as deepsea dan

 

[DEEP SEA]

Joewr, no offense taken. I did send an email to Stuart, maybe he will explain the 10 day thing?

About shark diving, I have been to Stuart Cove's place about 10 times mostly on assignment. I did one other shoot with Frazier Nivens for Nash Productions but I can't remember his organization. It was fairly close to Stuart's shop.

The shoot with Frazier was a TV special called, "The Adventures with the Duchess" staring Sarah - the Duchess of York. The guest host on our shoot was Jean-Michele Cousteau. Neal Watson was the Instructor. Frazier supplied the boat. I was the shooter.

The shoot in my opinion was going to be a cluster #$%. Sarah had never dove before and I had to get her up to speed with an AGA full face mask and how to use underwater communications on site. Neal had to get her ready to dive using a 40 lbs shark suit. The Duchess came equipped with a full compliment of body guards all heavily armed and playing the part (wires coming out of their ears, can't see eyes sun glasses, etc.). We were supposed to bait as many sharks as possible and whip them up as I remember someone saying.

In the dive brief I was told that three of the body guards were going down with us. I objected to deaf ears. THEY made it clear that where the Duchess goes, they GO. It was going to be hard enough with safety divers, divers handling lights, a novice diver, etc. and dealing with sharks everywhere. To make things worse, this was going to be a hard-wire shoot. That is, all talents, Sarah, Jean-Michele and Neal each, will have a 250' communication cable. I would have one also, this way I could hear the director and what the talents were saying.

Wow, talk about saving the environment, imagine a boat swinging about topside with (4) 250' umbilical's tied to each diver! Ah, I found a good thing for the body guards to help with, cable handling. This was great, now they could be down and I would not have to worry about cable being dragged all over things.

We had Neal, Jean-Michele and the Duchess go in together. I positioned myself in the water so I could get them jumping in and heading for the bottom. Frazier was busy ringing the dinner bell on the bottom and man did it work. We had about 25 sharks show up all at once. It was great, everyone was talking and having a ball. I was struggling to get ahead of the group and the director was screaming for me to hurry, hurry, hurry. My umbilical kept catching on something? I yelled up to the director to have the body guards give me more slack. He said they can't, they ALL walked on water to get back in the boat when the first shark showed up! :yelling:

 

[Dee]

What kind of bowling accident can you die from?

I've heard these bowling vs diver death stats before and...

Inquiring minds want to know!

 

[Mario S Caner]

Deep Sea,
That's a great story. Too bad you didn't get the meat heads running for their lives on film. That my friend would have been the million dollar shot!

Dee,
Not quite positive, but I'm assuming it's deaths resulting from the grossly out of shape fatties trying to out do themselves on the lanes... who knows? To be quite honest, I used to bowl, but it was more of a social activity for me than a competitive, let's see who can eat more onion rings and drink more beer type of thing... not that those activities weren't an integral part of the sport!

 

[kyleterry]

This summer I went to Stuart Coves shop and had a great time. I went back a month later when my oldest son said he wanted a week of shark diving for his 13th birthday present. On the trip to Stewart Cove from the Hotel (we stayed at Atlantis) we rode with a guy who had been attacked by a shark in the Indian Ocean while spear fishing. He went into very graphic detail about the attack, and showed us his scars (there were a lot). He spent a year in rehab. The buddy he was spear fishing with lost a leg.

Needless to say, my son would not get in the boat. We ended up going with another group to dive some wrecks, but my son still would not get in the water.

By the end of the week I got him in the water but we spent most the week pool side.

This doesn't add anything to the shark feeding conversation, but I thought it was a good story. I have not done a "shark feeding" dive, but would like to at least once. Beautiful creatures.

 

[DEEP SEA]

kyleterry - No way! What are the odds to be traveling to a location to shark dive and sit next to a guy who was bit? I don't remember the stats but the chances of being bit by a shark is slim to none (assuming your not grabbing at or threatening them or you meet up with a crazy shark).

As a matter of fact, since I started diving in 1964 I have only had two sharks try and bit me; One I grabbed be the tail and he didn't like it and the other - story.

One night while diving for lobsters on a jetty in San Diego, I saw a little Blue Shark swimming about. I had never seen one in so close and was amazed. What amazed me more was he came in at my light bitting like crazy! I then started swinging my light about trying to keep him off me. He was only about 2 ½ feet long but his teeth were chopping away. I climbed out on the rocks and was sitting for about 20 minutes before I saw my dive buddies dive light working toward me. My plan was as he passed by me, I would get back in the water and join him. WELL, his light start going crazy and before long he was crawling on the rocks below me. He almost jumped out of his wet suit when I said, "Hey, Jay - what's up?" He started to tell me the horrible thing that just happen to him when I interrupted him, "Why do you think I am sitting up here in the dark?" He laughed for a second then start letting me know what a jerk I was letting him swim up to that crazy shark. We both sat talking for about 40 minutes before we got in the water and finished our dive. Never saw the shark again and don't know why it was so pissed!

 

[King_Neptune]

DeepSea ...

Maybe that "little blue" got tired of all the Lawyer Jokes!

HAHA

=-)

 

[Mario S Caner]

Maybe it was agitated by a recent "Warhammer Manuever"... LOL! How would you feel if someone did that in your living room?