Shark Dive

Five minutes on the boat and we're there. On top of where the sharks live. The rich aqua blue waters that hypnotise slap gently against the boat as the adrenalin starts pumping in anticipation. A few minutes later, we hit the sandy bottom and wait, wondering if the sharks can sense the anticipation in the space surrounding you. Mark crackles the bottle to give them something to be curious about and soon enough, dark shadows start circling around us, moving in tighter, getting bigger, clearer. Sharks! The more curious ones come closer, graceful, beautiful and strangely calm as they swim around you seamlessly. Just when you think the sense of exhilaration can't be beaten, one of them turns and glides straight at you and for the first time in my life, my eyes are head on with a shark's snout. If the regulator hadn't been in my mouth, that would have been open, gaping in fascination at the sight of the sleek creature heading at me before veering off. The thrill is unspeakable. In desperation for more, you then start making cooing noises in an utterly futile effort to get them to come in closer, but alas, they don't seem to respond the same way felines and canines do, and just swim past you. Then, just as you're wondering what else you can do to get them in closer, half a dozen of them turn and head in your direction... it only lasts for a few seconds before they veer off into the wide blue yonder, but the sight of that many bull sharks face to face is indescribable. Being surrounded by almost two dozen sharks ranging from 6-9 feet is addictive and you start to panic as they bore of your presence and melt into the deep. Eventually, even the noises of the bottle fail to draw their curiosity and we slowly make our way back to the surface. Khush fumbles at the safety stop, flapping his fins more than necessary, and I watch one of the younger sharks undulate curiously upwards to investigate the disruption and I pray fervently that he'll venture a nibble on his fins. No such luck andthe inquisitive fellow loses interest and heads back down, much to my chagrin. The sight of two large rays flying along the bottom was a mere ho hum and back on the boat, the grins distort our faces beyond recognition and we exult over having been not more than 5-6 feet from these magnificent creatures (well, one of them at least!). The shivering isn't just the cool air after a dive, but the residual exhilaration and and a daft grin means that your teeth chatter louder than castanets, but you're beyond caring. Sadly, the second dive doesn't even rate, and google tells me that bull sharks are the most curious and therefore potentially aggressive and likely to attack humans.... oh yeah baby! Of course, the next time I hear Khush telling the tale, he apparently dived with twenty odd sharks... a bit of haggling, and we're down to twenty, and I think we agree to round it off to fifteen. Then again, maybe there were eight or nine or a dozen. He's positive I counted the same shark twice and who's to say he's not right.

Unfortunately, there are dive schools that will feed the sharks to get them in by the dozens, and as much as I would like to be surrounded by bloody trails and feeding sharks, especially in such large numbers, it's not right to upset the natural balance. Our being there is intrusive enough and as I scour the net for more shark dives, my principles regretfully exclude the bulk of them on grounds of tampering. While the fascination with the great white continues unabated, and while my principles will allow chum in the water to attract a solitary hunter, I'm not sure the sight of a feeding frenzy by a solitary giant through the bars of a cage will be able to compare to the serenity of having them silently swish past and at you out in the open, suddenly dimmer as the sun fades behind a cloud, then clearer as the rays filter through the blue, sharing the same wide open range. Pure Magic.

P.S. - Winter in Carmen del Playa, Mexico is best for bull shark sightings - just don't encourage the dive schools that feed the sharks, unless you want the beach to be shut down when they do start feeding on unsuspecting swimmers... Reef Quest Divers @ The Blue Parrot - that's the way to go.

P.P.S. - Apparently bull sharks have more testostorone than any other animal on the planet including elephants and lions (my source happens to be Animal Planet, so depend on it!). I feel even cooler now ;-)