Ever feel like you're swimming with sharks? (Travel pics)
 

I like that feeling! Taken a few days ago in Nassau...

http://www.missveronica.com/news/msvdiveswithsharks.jpg

http://www.missveronica.com/news/sharks2.jpg

(My regulator is in one hand; my camera is in the other)

Wow.. amazing pics

I would be scared to death!

Yeah, someone got bit by one of those sharks that afternoon... apparently, he didn't get the memo about "not flailing" around the sharks. They're pretty docile, but the sharks in that area get regular feedings by humans, so they have come to associate humans with food. We were told to keep our arms at our chests and avoid sudden movements while they chummed the water. He wasn't in our group, but in a dive spot just yards away with the same company - when I got back to the dock, he was on his way to the hospital - just stitches, but prolly not too fun. Swimming with sharks that get up to about nine feet with a box of bloody fish heads nearby isn't smart, but it is fun :)

You're nuts!

These two didn't have as good an experience as you I'm afraid :1orglaugh



http://i37.tinypic.com/2gv7c44.jpg

yea, put me in water with sharks while the are chumming, sure.

Very cool but i'am to chicken for that

I would do that, but i'd still soil myself in the process...

Peeing is a great way to warm up a wetsuit :winkwink:

Very cool pics veronica :thumbsup

That is some seriously crazy shit.

id be scared like shit!

Damn, running a business where people pay you to put them in dangerous situations must be awesome. :1orglaugh

One crazy girl right there

This surely can't be real?

:helpme

That had to be a really cool experience. I don't know if I'd ever do it though. Too much potential for something to go wrong.

Pretty cool; must have been an awesome feeling having those swimming so close.


This comment reminded me of this commercial; maybe thats where he got his swimming with the sharks advice from. :1orglaugh

Hey, I've dived there! That's just off of Clifton Pier.

What's interesting about that place is that the sharks are now accustomed to showing up when any boat arrives.

On my last dive, we started seeing sharks trailing the boat about five minutes before we got to the dive site. By the time we anchored, there was a school of 'em circling below. Of course, I was the first one over the side and made my way down the dive line.

They do swim pretty close to you, even without the chum. I managed to skim the tummy of one with the edge of my fingers as it swam just above my head, but by the time everyone was down the line the sharks had all just about moved on.

Who'd you dive with Veronica? Stuart's Cove, Bahama Divers or Nassau Divers?

This is the equivalent of putting a fish on our dinner plate. Im glad you made it back. :)

I went with Stuart's Cove. And yes, they showed up before the bloody fish heads went in the water, but the group pretty much dispersed within about five minutes.

What kind of sharks are they?

Damn... I am becoming such an environmentalist, LOL. The whole idea is very cool, but thinking about what that kind of conditioning is doing to those sharks can't be good.

Anyway, I'm glad you made it out alive. :-)

Yeah, I never thought I'd actually want to have sharks bumping into me, but it was really neat having them swim so close that they were brushing up against me and bumping into me with their fins. I never felt like I was in any danger - they seemed much more interested in the bits of fish offered by the divemaster than in tasting my wetsuit.

Great commercial!

dayam .. i'd think 10 times before diving with sharks.

Great pix..scary shit

omfg:helpme

I wanted to do that once but they let in only people with diving permit (license?), it was a disappointment and relief at the same time ;)

It's a photoshop job, at least that's what it said on the forum I found it on. I just wish I was that good at photoshop :Oh crap

Those guys are the best.

Better dive that area while you can within the next few years. Two major resort projects on that side of the island may have a devastating effect on the marine life. Environmentalists are saying that the fertilizer run-off from golf courses and the silt from dredging a new canal probably is going to have a serious effect on the reefs on that end.

No reefs, no fish, no sharks, no divers...end of story

Wow, that's awful! I just read yet another article talking about the devastating effects of fertilizer runoff on marine life... that it creates a bloom of phytoplankton and bacteria that wind up sucking all the oxygen out of the water and creates "dead zones" of no marine life - usually a seasonal thing, but getting larger, more common, and lasting longer. The fish that can swim fast enough can get away, but slow moving things like starfish and the like are sitting ducks.

I don't get the whole golfing phenomenon, anyhoo...

I'd be happy to have an excuse to go back... and I'd recommend Stuart Cove's anytime - I picked up a magazine at the airport on the way home that said they were among the best - so I know it's not just us :)

"I just read yet another article talking about the devastating effects of fertilizer runoff on marine life... "

Yeah, there's a giant dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico where the runoff from farming in the midwest seeps into the Mississippi River. http://www.gulfhypoxia.net/

We swam with the sharks in Hawaii, even though we were in a cage it was still pretty intense! :thumbsup There is a place near Cabo where you can swim with sailfish. They found
it a couple years ago. Its an annual occurrence where they gather for the mating season, then disperse. And there is another place off baja where you can get in a cage where
great whites are swimming around you. :helpme

they're like lions, feed em well beforehand and ya got nothin to worry about I thnk there's alot of people exaggerating. I'd kill to be in nassau myself right now lol

My cousin went to Tahiti and hand fed sharks with some old local guy that's been doing it for years. She said he just walks out into the surf and they just come up and peck it out of his hands.

Pretty crazy if you ask me..

very cool

Sweet, I would love to do that!

next time, Invite me

great pics!!

They are Caribbean Reef Sharks, even though Nassau is not technically in the Caribbean. I looked up their distribution on wikipedia and found this: "Florida to Brazil. Fished out of many areas but still abundant in the Bahamas where some degree of protection has been granted due to tourist dollars being generated by shark feeds."

I had some quasi-environmentalist-morality issues with going on a shark feed - I remember denouncing the sharks feeds in Florida ten years ago because I thought it would teach the sharks to associate people with dinner and hapless swimmers would end up getting bit. But, the urge to be around sharks overshadowed my moral tendencies and I decided to go. At least I feel a little better knowing that it's partly the shark feeds that keep them from going on the endangered species list.

There's a good chance I'll be back in the Caribbean in November. There's an event I attend almost every year in Jamaica called Kink in the Caribbean. Unfortunately, the diving is kinda crappy in Jamaica compared to other parts of the Caribbean. I got certified while at Kink a few years ago, and two weeks later I was on a week-long dive trip in Little Cayman - diving Bloody Bay Wall - AWESOME! Good way to get started, but the downside is that now I'm ruined for enjoying less populated/diverse dive sites.

Thanks :)

I checked out your tube script - looks cool! :thumbsup

more power to you guys, if I could swim at all, I'd be inclined to go myself...very cool pics!!!