Constructive annoyance
Least surprising death award
Tue, February 26, 2008 - 4:11 PMHey, let's toss bait in the water to attract sharks. And then jump in!
Sharks are very elegant bits of design by Mother Nature, but their brains are the size of... well, something very small. If the water smells like food, then every so often they're gonna bite whatever they come across assuming it's food.
I really don't know much about diving, but I'm amazed an organized dive tour would pull stunts like this. Here it is in (figurative) black and white, and it lists several dangerous shark types among what chumming will attract... www.scuba-adventures.com/baham....shtml
Tue, February 26, 2008 - 4:11 PM -
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Tue, February 26, 2008 - 7:59 PM
I went on a shark dive in Roatan. I didn't know it was going to be a shark dive till we were gearing up. The day before, I'd asked the divemaster to take us somewhere that had really big fish. He complied.
They weren't chumming, but it was a place where the sharks expected chumming. At about 90 feet, they started zooming in out of nowhere, one after the other, till there were fifteen or twenty of them, some as long as 15 feet. They kept circling closer and closer; some would come up to you and do this weird shimmy. When they started to cut through the center of the group of divers, the leader had us haul ass outta there. I guess I deserve a runner-up deathwish award. I will say that if there were tiger sharks around, you'd have to put a gun to my head to get me into the water. I think the M.O. of the dive company is pretty typical. |
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Wed, February 27, 2008 - 12:51 AM
I don't know that I'd agree about sharks being really dumb. 'course shumming and jumping in is kind of foolish.
However, if approached properly and they don't mistake you for seals, sharks DO like belly rubs. It's true, I've given a leopard shark belly rubs. |
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Wed, February 27, 2008 - 9:54 AM
It's exactly the chumming that makes this so over-the-top to me. Sure, you can get in the water with sharks -- people do that all the time. You taste/smell funny, and with scuba they don't like the bubbles. So they are (usually) not going to mistake you for food.
Attacks typically occur either because someone looked like a seal silhouette on the surface or when someone was spear fishing nearby (i.e., fish blood in the water). When you intentionally confuse their senses with bait, you've blurred the line. |
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Mon, March 17, 2008 - 11:34 PM
You were in the water with a nice sized shark once.
You just didn't notice.... I'm so glad that you instantly caught the hint that we were leaving RIGHT FUCKING NOW, and I didn't have to explain why. As we took off our snorkel gear on the beach all I had to say was "Like 40 feet away, I'd guess ten feet long". So you've swam within sight of a good sized Galapagos or Tiger shark, but you were smart enough to leave... quickly. The 3-4 foot reef sharks you took pictures of are just too cute. Post those pics?
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