Dive 069
| Date | Jan 13, 2002-03:26 PM |
| Location: | Scuba Zoo, Flinders Reef - Coral Sea, Australia |
| Dive Shop | Mike Ball |
| Purpose | Recreation - shark feeding |
| Buddy | Mark Robinson |
| Exposure Suit | 3mm |
| Other Equipment | video, wide angle lens |
| Weight | 12 |
| Viz | 100 |
| Max Depth | 51 |
| Start Air | 2940 |
| End Air | 490 |
| EAN | 0 |
| Minutes Under | 63 |
| Surface Interval | 146 |
| Remarks |
This dive was a shark feeing put on by the boat staff. There were three main parts of the dive: getting settled, feeding, leaving.
The site was set up with three stationary cages. There was one long one and two medium sized ones. The photographers and videographers were told to go to the big cage, because the light was best there.
The entire group entered the water at the ame general time. Once in the water, we all made our way to the cages. Once at the cages most of the divers layed on top of the cages for the first part of the dive. A few of the divers went straight inside the cage, and the crew went to work to put on a good show for us. As we were getting settled a few sharks started to appear and swim around the area. The crew brought down a trash can full of shark food. This trash can was attached to a rope and pully system that the crew could control. As more sharks came on the scene the crew would use the pullies to bring the trash can in front of all the cages. This got the sharks to swim real close to the divers (a good show). A few of the divers got smacked around by the sharks. While this was happening more and more sharks appeared on the scene. I must say this was really exciting. There were sharks right in front of me, above me, behind me, everywhere. And they were sharks waiting for some food. The crew does the feeding with a trash can instead of by hand so that the sharks don't associate humans with food. I guess they are being turned into garbage disposals.
After a few minutes of parading the trash can around the crew gave everyone the sign to get in the cages. We get in the cages right before they open the trash can and the frenzy begins. We do this so the sharks don't extend the frenzy upon us. After everyone is in a cage the crew pulls a rope that opens the trash can. The frenzy begins. Seeing it on video is nothing compared to being there. There is a lot of energy in the water as the sharks rip apart the fish. You can hear the noises and feel the electricity.
The freenzy only lasted a few minutes. Then the sharks started to calm down. They milled around for a minute or two, then started to swim off. They knew the routine and knew the feeding was over. This is when the crew told us we were free to get out of the cages. Thus began the last part of the dive. We started looking for shark's teeth. The crew told us we were free to go out, sift through the sand and keep any teeth we found. Since there were lots of sharks feeding there, it would seem reasonable that there would be lots of shark teeth. I went down and looked around for a little while. A couldn't find anything and didn't really know what I was looking for, so I gave up pretty early. I spent my time watching and filming the divers digging through the sand (funny looking).
At the safety stop I got a few good views of shark packs roaming around the ocean floor.
I took my camera down and shot a good amount of footage. I was a little worried that it wouldn't come out well. When we got up and dried off we attached my video to one of the ship's TVs and everyone watched. I was a little nervous at first, but after a few seconds I realized that I had good stuff. I was really happy with the quality of the video, and a few people complimented me on it.
| Previous Dive | • | Table Of Contents | • | Next Dive |
This page written by Dive Log. A Macintosh program by Chris Cohoon