Six Sharks at Makena Caverns

[MauiScubaSteve]

A fellow photo SB'er (Phacops) gave me an Ikelite slave sensor ($40 shipped!). Mine died over a year ago and since I didn't get around to sending it in for repair yet, I nearly changed my sig line. Now I can leave the sig line as is, because today was a successful test dive of the new sensor. If anybody else is feeling generous, I need an Ike to Ike dual sync cord!

It was a late afternoon dive on a blustery day, but small surge and pretty nice conditions. There was one adult white tip reef shark getting cleaned in the first cavern (coming from Makena Landing) which didn't stay long after I started shooting. Thought I would find it in the bubble cavern, but a juvenile was in there by it's self.

As I approached the entrance to the long lava tube I could see at least three sharks milling about. Once inside there were four adults sniffing tails, although one stayed mostly outside when I was inside. At one point I counted six within 20 feet of me; a probably pregnant one mostly resting in a tight napping spot, the juvi (or another one) and the four flirting adults (three following the one with a hook in it's mouth).

I have not shot that set up in quite a while and only got 4 keepers out of 60 shots; kind of like shooting with film! It seems I will have to re-learn my favorite camera rig.

 

[justleesa]

the Shark in the 2nd to the last pic looks a bit chunky....baby sharks are on the way! Nice clear pics! thanks for sharing...I sure miss seeing sharks

 

[SSharkk]

Nice pictures halemomo!

Do you know about the white tip reef shark research project that Nick Whitney is doing at the University of Hawai'i ? He is looking for pictures from divers just like yours for that project.

Please go to these two sites:

The Whitetip Reef Shark Project of Hawaii

Nick Whitney : Scientist Profile - Marine Biologist

He is a very cool guy and, a first rate shark scientist.

Tell him Jeff Trotta sent you.

 

[Shaka Doug]

Nice shots Steve. Do you know about the shark research they are doing at U of H? They're categorizing each shark based upon their individual markings ie: brown freckles. Each shark has it's own unique pattern. Just like they've been able to identify specific humpback whales based on tail patterns, they can do the same with the white tips and their brown spots. Your shots could prove to be very helpful to them since they are clear and 'broadside'. Plus you have several individuals all together. They like to also know the location and date the sharks were seen. The data is being used to determine migration patterns of the Hawaiian White Tips. They also collect DNA samples from some of the sharks to try to figure out blood lines and to see if the sharks go from island to island or not. Pretty cool stuff. I can get contact info for you if you'd like to submit any pics. Thanks for posting these Steve! I wanted to get down there for a dive yesterday but it didn't work out.

 

[Shaka Doug]

Hey Jeff! You beat me to it by 4 minutes!!!! And you're absolutely correct. Nick is a great guy and he knows a lot about the White Tips!

 

[MauiScubaSteve]

Do you know about the shark research they are doing at U of H?

Doug, wasn't it you that provided local guide services to Brady Barr and Nick for the National Geographic Dangerous Encounters episode in these caverns?

Nearly bought that DVD, just for the laughs when Brady starts hysterical hyperventilation in his full face mask trying to make 3 timid white tips seem dangerous to 4 full size divers with cameras, lights and the sample spear!

Nick and I had a nice talk once, but just like the manta researcher I met at Ukumehame, getting a Doctorate often means too much time talking to the librarian and not enough time talking to dive guides.

I told Nick he could get good white tip pictures just by lurking ScubaBoard; forgot to mention the search function and the photo gallery. Also invited him to visit my web site; never heard back from him.

 

[Beachlover]

Doug, wasn't it you that provided local guide services to Brady Barr and Nick for the National Geographic Dangerous Encounters episode in these caverns?

Nearly bought that DVD, just for the laughs when Brady starts hysterical hyperventilation in his full face mask trying to make 3 timid white tips seem dangerous to 4 full size divers with cameras, lights and the sample spear!

Nick and I had a nice talk once, but just like the manta researcher I met at Ukumehame, getting a Doctorate often means too much time talking to the librarian and not enough time talking to dive guides.

I told Nick he could get good white tip pictures just by lurking ScubaBoard; forgot to mention the search function and the photo gallery. Also invited him to visit my web site; never heard back from him.

I saw that episode with Brady,too.He is WAY dramatic!! Too funny!

 

[MauiScubaSteve]

Nice pictures halemomo!

:no

For an obvious shark connoisseur, and someone with the following quote in his sig line;

The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words. - Philip K. Dick

Your command of the keyboard is supprisingly lame.

Hale is home or house in Hawaiian, and mano is shark (although the o needs a macron to be completely correct).

If that's too hard to type, you can call me Steve.

 

[SSharkk]

Hey Jeff! You beat me to it by 4 minutes!!!! And you're absolutely correct. Nick is a great guy and he knows a lot about the White Tips!

Aloha Doug:

We will have get together and talk story. I love Hawai'i.

Jeff

 

[HIshark]

Hey Shark-house Steve (and Jeff and Doug and Leesa). Was just talking to the librarian here and she told me there was a whitetip thread on Scubaboard that I should check out. She's always right!

Thanks to all of you for taking great photos (Steve) and steering them in my direction (Jeff and Doug). Doug - what's up with that four-minute lag time though? Let's try to improve that next time!

Steve - these are some of the clearest pics I've seen from the Makena area - beautiful! We've ID'd over 22 individual whitetips from the Makena/Puu Olai area and have yet to see any overlap between them and the 70 or so sharks we've ID'd at Molokini. Pretty interesting stuff.

Anyway, we'd love to include your photos in our database if it's okay with you and if you could provide the date (looks like June 1, 2008). Sorry if I didn't get back to you before. I'm sure I have your website info somewhere in a stack of information to go back and incorporate into the database, but if you could post it for me again I'd appreciate it.

Alot of people only know me as "the whitetip photo-ID guy" so there's a tendency to think that's my job, but like the Ukumehame manta guy, I run this project by myself as one part of a 4-part dissertation study, in addition to a part-time job to actually pay some bills (the shark research is not a paid position). So if your dated photos are already on a website for us to easily download, that's ideal.

Otherwise photos that come in via email with date and location information are incorporated into the database almost immediately, but alot of others fall through the cracks because people leave me messages wanting me to call them and arrange a place/time to meet to discuss their photos, etc. and I just can't do it.

So doing my best, but I'm forced to ask for people's help not just in getting the photos, but also in packaging them and getting them to us in a format we can easily process. Again, it sounds like yours are online and ready to go so I'd love to get that web address again. Who knows, we may have actually already incorporated your pics and just failed to tell you about it. Did we ever send you any bumper stickers?

Thanks again guys!
Nick Whitney
whitetip@hawaii.edu
The Whitetip Reef Shark Project of Hawaii