So I started going through the photographs from our honeymoon in Fiji and the one’s that really get me excited are from the amazing Shark Dive that we went on while staying at the Lalati Resort in the beautiful Beqa lagoon. When my wife and I met in our hometown of Sarasota, FL she was an avid shark lover and overall fin / tooth enthusiast and that part of her personality always intrigued me. I myself have always been curious about sharks and the role they play in our eco-system because I spent a summer volunteering at the famous Mote Marine Laboratory which is a leading shark conservation / research center in Sarasota while I was in High School. When you grow up in Florida you are automatically thrown into the ocean. Your after school activities include fishing, paddling a canoe down the canals, building tree forts over the mangroves, bringing home buckets of crabs and bait fish, shuffling your feet at the beach (in order to not get stung by a ray), and building sand castles. The ocean becomes your playground and you are encouraged to investigate and experiment until you build your own relationship with the water. Being a Floridian means being salty, tan, well versed in sea food, and un afraid of the water.
It is often cool to day dream about sharks and to try to understand the reason they get a bad reputation in society but diving with them with out a cage is whole other experience all together. As a species they often face negative implications from the media when we hear stories of attacks and immediately their ferocious mythology becomes the next scare tactic for the local 6 o’clock news but when you are face to face diving with them it’s almost as if they are allowing you in. They say whether or not it’s ok for you to be in the deep blue sea. They are checking you out and feeding off of your energy. Sharks are the police of the ocean in the sense that they keep everything else in check: the fish, the sea lions, the turtles, the rays, and even the other sharks. So as long as you are down there with a calm demeanor and you are not breaking any underwater laws you should be ok. That was at least my own personal experience as a new diver trying to see it all and figure it out. Swimming down there to witness a mass shark feeding frenzy was exhilarating and magical and it felt completely safe although I doubt I would do it everyday just because I wouldn’t want to roll the dice that many times.
Here are the first of many photos and video to come. These are black tip reef sharks shot with my GoPro Hero 3 + (no red filter). They were circling around the edge of the reef waiting for the big 8-12 foot bull sharks to finish feeding so they could step in. They were just cruising around me the whole time so I swam closer to get these crazy shots.
