New Job

I don't have much of an internet connection, but I do have much to report!

I recently (wednesday morning) was offered a position working in the Fin Photo division of Stuart Cove's Dive Bahamas, on the island of New Providence (basically Nassau). Saturday and Sunday were travel days, and I'm just now winding down my first full day on the island. Tons of stuff to absorb, with the highlight being that I was sent along on the 2-tank afternoon Shark Dive, one of the staples of the operation.

We started with the industry-standard deeper "tour" dive along the wall, averaging around 60ft in depth, seeing the sights. This would be pretty normal, except that by the time the boat had moored, we already had 5 or 6 grey visitors circling...

Once we were in the water the sharks basically ignored us, keeping enough distance to suit them as the dive group swam along. All in all a nice wall dive, which included sighting a number of Lionfish. Foreign invaders, all the Lionfish in the Caribbean Sea are the descendants of a handful that were liberated from a Florida aquarium by a hurricane. Without any predators or parasites in these waters, they have multiplied and are depleting stocks of native fish that don't know them to be voracious predators.

Once back on the boat, we changed tanks and were briefed on the second dive, which would be the actual feeding dive. Our divemaster suited up in chainmail, as did the photographer I was shadowing. I jumped in and began guiding the guests down to the "arena," a bowl maybe 25ft across, scoured out of the sandy bottom in part by the movement of the sharks. Each diver was assigned a rock at the periphery, and our photographer began taking video of the arrival of the divemaster with the bait box.

The sharks were obviously used to the routine, and even before the bait box hit the water, we had been surrounded by over 40 caribbean reef sharks. Gone was the cautious distance they had been keeping from us. Once divers entered the water the second time, any regard the sharks had had for personal space was gone. We found ourselves in ringside seats for a feeding frenzy, centering on the divemaster/feeder, who used a stainless steel rod to spear dead fish from the box, and carefully take them out to be fed to the sharks. I managed to get away with only one light nudge from a particularly large female's tail, but our DM got quite a bit of abuse from the hungry sharks. Our photographer at one point had his entire hand taken into a hungry mouth, a good reason to be wearing chainmail sleeves and gloves (which he was!). The bait box exhausted, though still fishy enough to be the center of attention, our DM used it to lead the sharks away from the arena, allowing us spectators to briefly search for any teeth discarded in the melee, and return to the boat.

All in all, a fantastic couple of dives, and a not bad way to mark my birthday!

Stay posted for more updates as things develop further.