Shark Fest

                                                                                                                   By Phil Maranda

Shark attacks can happen in the blink of an eye or in this case, the snap of a shutter. Kneeling in the sand 40 feet beneath the ocean waves while 30-plus frenzied Caribbean reef sharks battle for a scrap of fish three feet in front of my face tends to up the odds. Determined to snap a photo of a large female at the precise moment she snatches the bait—despite my sense of impending doom—I raise the Nikonos-V camera to mask-level and fire; the strobe’s blinding flash explodes into the subdued light of the Atlantic, and a split second later, all I see is a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth. This is it! I’m shark bait for sure!
* * *
The warm, humid air that caressed my face as I stepped off the plane in Nassau, Bahamas felt like heaven. It was February, and like many of my fellow Canadians, I’d grown tired of another long, cold winter. I decided to jet away to el Caribe for a quick vacation in the sun and what promised to be an extreme week of diving with Caribbean reef sharks in one of the world’s premier locations to participate in a shark-feeding dive. A couple of the Bond movies were filmed in the Bahamas, and although I didn’t possess the titanium chandeliers of 007 when it came to swimming with sharks, I was looking forward to it just the same.

                                                                                                                                            
Sitting on the boat as it cruised towards a dive site known as Shark Wall, a day and a half later, all I could think about was what it would really be like to fulfill a dream I’d entertained for nearly 15 years—fear or not, I was finally going to dive with sharks. The seas were rough, thunderheads were blowing up on the horizon, and as we approached the dive site, my excitement, mixed with a major dose of apprehension, mounted to near adrenaline-rush levels.
When we arrived at the wall—10 miles out from New Providence Island—which was represented topside by a couple of mooring buoys bobbing in the expanse of the turquoise waters of the Atlantic, there were already a couple of sharks cruising towards the boat. They must recognize the meal wagon, I thought as the dive instructor told everyone to suit up.

   
By the time our group of 15 anxious divers was ready to go, dorsal fins were breaking the water all around the boat. Watching this spectacle made it hard for me to focus on dive instructor Tohru Yamaguchi’s pre-dive briefing. At first I caught something about the wall being down around 70 feet and that we’d be underwater for roughly 30 minutes, but then Yamaguchi mentioned something that snapped me to attention and began to ease my fear. “Caribbean reef sharks don’t eat meat, only fish. I’ve taken a piece of chicken down with me, and the sharks won’t go near it,” he said. “But just make sure you don’t touch a shark or wave your arms in front of the sharks.”
After doing final checks to the gear, it was time to go, and one after another the group jumped into the water via the back platform of Stuart Cove’s 40-foot, custom dive boat. Before slipping beneath the waves myself, I grabbed a Nikonos-V camera (that I’d rented back at the dock) from Karyn Wilde, an underwater photographer from Vancouver, B.C. who worked in Stuart Cove’s photo shop. Wilde had given me a bit of advice on getting close-up shots of the sharks when we were back on dry land. “Sharks are easy to photograph,” she’d mentioned with a slight smile. “We usually put a fish in our pockets if we want the sharks to get really close. But don’t take it out and wave it around or the shark will come up and bite you trying to get at the fish.” Thanks, but no way, I’d told her.

                              
Deflating my buoyancy compensator, I began to descend, and the second my mask was underwater I could see a dozen sharks cruising around the boat, some of them heading right towards me. I tried to relax by taking a deep breath and letting it out real slow, but it wasn’t until the first big reefer passed by about three feet away that I realized at least this one didn’t want me for lunch.
Continuing down towards our meeting point, I was really amazed by how many sharks were in the area. Each one seemed to be moving at the same speed as if they were set on cruise control. The fact that light dissipates quickly underwater helped to add to the surreal feeling of the whole event. The sharks just materialized out of the darkness, slowly becoming clearer as they drew near. The first motion I could pick out of the gloom was the snake-like movement of their bodies caused by the swish of their powerful tails propelling them through the deep blue.

                             
Caribbean reef sharks use their tails not only for propulsion but also to make sudden changes in direction when they’re hunting or fleeing. When provoked, these perfectly designed killing machines can move with blinding speed. Adult reefers range in length from six and a half to just over 8 feet, the females being larger than the males. They can smell blood in the water from miles away and have amazing hearing, capable of making out the thrashing sounds of an injured fish from over a half-mile.

                            
When I arrived at the rendezvous point, the rest of the group was ready to go, and Yamaguchi began leading us along a reef rich with coral, sea sponges, and other marine flora and fauna. Brightly-colored fish of all sizes and shapes darted in every direction while giant groupers meandered by, seemingly undeterred by the presence of the divers who’d invaded their domain

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Caribbean reef sharks were everywhere, swimming up and down the reef like they’d been asked to join our group cruising along the wall. The sharks swam so close to us that it would’ve been a breeze just to reach out and touch one, and as they passed by they eyeballed me until it started to feel like I was on the other side of an aquarium glass, and they were looking in on me. Struggling to break the spell, I forced myself to focus on the camera grasped firmly in my right hand and on making pictures.

At that moment a large reefer appeared, heading straight for me, and so I tried to remember what tips (besides the fish in the pocket) Wilde had given me then raised the camera and took my first shot. When the strobe fired it startled both of us, and for a split second I thought I saw the shark blink before it moved off at a slightly accelerated pace.
Thirty minutes pass quickly underwater, and soon we were back on the boat getting ready (after a brief rest) for the second dive. This was the one that everybody was really there for—the shark feeding. Yamaguchi laid it all down in his pre-dive briefing about how we should make our way to the bottom by following the anchor line attached to the front of the boat. Once we were at the anchor, we were to swim to a sandy circle known as the Shark Arena.

                               
“When you get to the Shark Arena, kneel down, and remember, don’t touch the sharks. Don’t wave your arms around because on this dive there will be many more sharks, 30 or 40 of them. If you do move your hands abruptly, the Caribbean reef sharks could mistake them for bait and bite you. Your hands are pretty close to the same color as the fish heads I’ve got in the feeder,” Yamaguchi said. Finishing up his briefing, he again stressed the importance of making sure that we were planted on the bottom in a stable position and kept our movements slow.
Before we entered the water, Yamaguchi threw fish heads over the side, and we all watched as sharks began to swarm around the boat. There were only a few at first, but within minutes, fins were breaking the surface everywhere I looked. This time the dorsal fins of the sharks didn’t seem nearly as threatening as before. So the minute I was ready to go, I jumped in, resurfaced to grab the Nikonos-V from Wilde, then descended and made my way to the Shark Arena.
On the way to the bottom I watched the sharks swarm around each diver, looking to see if they might be carrying the bait. But when the reefers realized there was no food, they swam off to the next person and then the next. Once we made it to the Shark Arena and had formed a semi-circle on the sandy bottom, Yamaguchi was bringing down the bait box. The sharks made a beeline right to him and were making no mistake this time as they followed the veteran shark wrangler while he made his way to our position.
The moment Yamaguchi landed on the ocean floor, the sharks moved in, showing a great deal more aggression than on the previous dive. They bumped and pushed each other out of the way as they jockeyed for position around the feeder. Although our guide was probably right about the number of reefers, there seemed to be many more as they pushed past us to get at the first piece of fish that Yamaguchi pulled from the feeder. At that moment I knew exactly why we were supposed to be planted firmly on the bottom since the sharks nearly upended several members of our group including me.

                                  
A large female was the first to take the bait, and as she was tearing it off the metal skewer, I could see her eyelid close and then reopen again as she moved off, still thrashing with the bait half in her jaws. With each new fish head that our guide produced, the frenzy heightened until all I could see were fins, snapping jaws, and dozens of reefers at once all battling to be the first to the skewer that Yamaguchi held in his armor-clad hand.
The feeder was completely emptied by the Caribbean reef sharks in 10 or 15 minutes tops, and then it was time to head back to the surface. The sharks seemed to calm down almost instantly as Yamaguchi lifted off the bottom. Most of the reefers disappeared as quickly as they had arrived while others still interested in our guide took up following him to the surface. Meanwhile, some of the divers in our group who’d been on shark dives before began to rummage through the sand looking for shark teeth while I waited for the adrenaline which was coursing through my veins like a raging river to subside enough so I could make my way back to the boat.
On the second day of shark diving, Yamaguchi decided we should dive a little closer to shore due to the seas being much rougher than before. And once we’d completed the first shark dive—which seemed really tame compared to the day before—I found myself back on the boat getting ready for another shark feeding.
Yamaguchi wanted to give me an extra thrill by allowing me to get closer to the action so I could make some full-frame images of the sharks. He handed me the same radical-looking, knights-of-the-round-table-like, chain-mail armor that he used to protect himself from shark bites during the feedings. I slipped it over my slimy-feeling, already wet suit before donning the rest of the gear and getting ready to enter the water. Within a few minutes I was underwater juggling the Nikonos-V in one slippery, metal-covered hand and was heading towards the feeding area.
At the bottom, Yamaguchi instructed me to move in three feet from the feeder. When I was planted firmly on the sand, he speared the first fish head and extended it out in front of my face. There wasn’t much time to react as the sharks rushed in, and I was lost in the middle of the fray.
Then I saw Yamaguchi spear another fish head. Once again he stuck it right in front of me, but this time—despite my mounting fear of getting bit—I managed to raise my camera just as a big female reefer rushed towards the feeder. With blinding speed she hit the skewer, and at that instant I somewhat aimed the camera and fired.
* * *

                                        
For a split second the light blinds me, and then all I see is a set of razor-sharp teeth bearing down on me through the camera lens. There’s no time to move so I do the only thing I can and brace for the impact of a shark attack. Suddenly my mask gets knocked off, my camera is nearly torn from my hands, and I feel myself rearing back from the blow. I can’t tell if I’m bleeding or if the chain mail deflected the bite, and I can’t even tell if I’ve been bitten at all.
A few moments pass in an eternity, and then I start to take stock of what has just happened. I quickly reposition my mask and then clear it of water so I can once again view what is going on around me. Looking down I can see no blood pouring from an open wound and no signs of any other real damage. The strobe on the camera has taken the worst hit and has been knocked out of position. Readjusting the light, I take a few deep breaths, a couple of steps backwards, and then return to watching the shark- feeding frenzy.
By the time Yamaguchi and the sharks are done, I’ve spent all my film. This time I follow the guide back to the boat; all the sharks are still trailing the feeder in hopes of picking up a few more scraps. During my ascent, I have another chance to investigate my suit and equipment and can find no teeth marks anywhere. By the time I pull myself out of the water, I feel confident that I’m all right, for the time being anyway.
Back on board I listen to Wilde as she tells me what she saw of the incident from her position over my right shoulder where she was video taping the dive. “The shark was coming straight at you with its jaws wide open and the protective layer over the eyes shut,” she says. “It was ready to bite. Then at the last possible second it tried to veer away from you and hit your mask and camera.”
Wilde’s version of the story sets my mind at ease. The shark wasn’t really after me but was just striking at whatever was in front of her after she’d taken the bait. The knowledge that it was nothing personal is a tremendous relief. And as I head towards the bow for the ride back to the dock, I find myself thankful that I had the chance to finally fulfill my dream. Besides, tomorrow if I want to, I can dance with the sharks once again.
                                     
Photography:
My trip to the Bahamas was the very first time I’d ever shot underwater---outside of a pool that is, it was the first time I’d ever used a Nikonos-V camera, and it was the first time I’d ever dove with sharks. Thanks to the scuba instructor back home who gave me a crash course in underwater photography, with a somewhat different view on photography than what I was used to, I was somehow able to pull it off…what is “field of depth” anyway?
Now, photographing sharks can be, at best, a terrifying experience, especially if you’ve watched far too many Jaws movies and have been “wrongly convinced” that sharks are vicious man-eaters that enjoy snacking on human flesh. I never really bought that crap, but the fear still rises up from some unexplained place where all our brainwashing is kept, and it was making me a little fearful at first.
Once I was in the water, armed with a bright orange Nikonos-V camera, and there were, conservatively, 30 Caribbean reef sharks circling the boat like Indians around a wagon in an old western, I began to really panic. It didn’t take long to calm down, however, as the first few sharks that came within petting distance (don’t try that) didn’t eat me.
When that first shark did move within range—when I was down at 70 feet—I was thankful that the ladies who worked in the Stuart Cove photo shop had already set the camera up with the strobe positioned to the standard 45-degree angle to prevent backscatter (the light from the strobe hitting suspended particles and bouncing back into the lens), had pre-focused the lens for four feet from the subject, and had also given me my second but very excellent course on underwater photography.
The rest of my photography experience over that week in the Bahamas was pretty much trial and error. After each day of shark diving, I would get my film developed back at the dock so I could view all the mistakes I’d made. The following day I would try to correct those mistakes. The camera was always set up at the photo shop, and so with little in-the-water adjustments to be made, it was just a matter of remembering to shoot upwards a little at the subject and trying to keep as close as possible to the sharks…thank god you don’t have to shoot polar bears from such a close proximity.