White Tip Reef Shark Mouth Cleaning!

[MauiScubaSteve]

Shaka Doug inspired me with his latest monk seal video, so I headed down to Makena Landing for a couple dives over the weekend. Saturday my strobe battery didn't have a charge (may be dead), but the action I saw brought me back Sunday with a different, fully charged battery.

This was my longest non-rebreather dive, mainly because I was not moving at 16' depth for over 30 minutes at the beginning of the dive and at the end of the dive; over an hour just holding my camera in front of this shark's mouth!

This series needs no captioning other than the file name.

Open Wide

Say Aaahh

Stinks In There

Going Deep

Gesundheit​

 

[Jim Ernst]

That is cool!!!

Awesome pictures!!

 

[NudiHuntrs]

Picture quality is awesome!
That is a great series.

Thanks for sharing them

NH

 

[justleesa]

How cool is that?

 

[deeper thoughts]

Fantastic!!!

 

[Shaka Doug]

Sweet! It takes a lot of patience to get shots like those. You must have been solo. How long was the dive? Glad to see the shark and cleaner wrasses cooperated with you so nicely! I like the first picture the best. Is that a scar on his lower right jaw? Maybe from a big fish hook?

 

[Scuba-Jess]

That is very cool!

 

[MauiScubaSteve]

Yes I was solo, made it out to the 3-hole cavern in the south dike in-between the mouth sessions. The shark was more OK with it than the wrasse; they jumped with every flash and stayed back by the gills for at least 50 minutes out of the more than 60 minutes I was in position.

Every time the camera went to sleep I had to wake it back up and at the end the last couple shots had so long a shutter lag I thought it wasn't going to fire. I moved the camera just as it fired on the last one, which might have been the best one if I'd had a little more patience.

It does look like a scar in that corner, and that might be why the shark spends so much time with mouth cleaning; better healing.

 

[friscuba]

Man, those shots are great!

 

[scubadrewvideo]

Nice shootin Steve, Thats a shot sequence we only only dream of.
When I come over to Maui you'll have to show me around.
Drew