As shark week approaches it occurred to me that I have had a chance to dive with quite a few varieties of sharks, and I am not talking about the two legged variety. I hope that I will never forget the first time I saw bull sharks. They are incredibly beautiful animals that move through the water column easier than most people breath. They are so efficient under water a very small flick of the tail will carry them forward with incredible speed.
From fast to enormous size was the next set of sharks with which I had a chance to interact. The first time I jumped out of the boat with my camera in hand I had not even had a chance to turn around entirely when I saw this incredible mouth, almost 6 feet across, coming directly at me. I kicked for all I was worth trying to get out of the way only to realize later that with a small flick of the whale shark’s tail he could easily avoid me. So much for my swimming skills.
It was not until I traveled to Ambergris Caye in Belize that I really had a chance to watch a number of active nurse sharks. Sure I had seen nure sharks laying on the bottom napping while I was diving, but I had not really seen them actively moving around a reef until I was in Belize. Although many people think of nurse sharks as fairly “tame” you still need to be careful because they are big animals and can create some problems if their space is not respected.
The Bahamas gave me an opportunity to interact with grey reef sharks. They are very fast predators and they have a mouth full of teeth, but unless they are being fed they tend be to fairly shy about divers.
Grey reef sharks I think are very photogenic sharks. They are innately curious and will often give divers at least a quick look before they go back to looking for more interesting food.
The most recent type of shark I came across off of the Kona coast. A white tip reef shark. At least the one I found was about 5 feet in length, a juvenile and he was not interesting in hanging out with divers. I barely got a couple of shots off before he was long gone. And, even then he was pretty well hidden in the shadows.
Maybe on my next set of dives I will get a chance to see a tiger shark. I guess we will see if we are so fortunate.
