advice shark diving

dave12345 said:

i have been told we are going were hammerheads & bullsharks are,i think i have watched jaws to many times

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OK, if you see hammerheads then you will be lucky - don't be worried about them! They will likely be quite far away and often below you. To see them you generally swim out from the reef and stare out and down into the blue very carefully. They are easily spooked and especially don't like noises and bubbles. They are very, very, very unlikely to attack you, even if you got close enough for that to happen. Hammerheads are very beautiful sharks, and move in a very particular way that is really quite graceful.

I am not sure that you are going to see Bull Sharks. The other sharks you might see are threshers - again, if you are very lucky. Threshers are easily spooked too, but are stunning looking, with a very long tail that they use to stun fish with, and huge eyes, like puppy dogs'. Grey Reefs are very common, and they tend to pay less attention to divers. Thet tolerate divers closer to them than some of the other species, but will tend to dash off fast once you get too close. White tip reef sharks are the little sharks that are seen everywhere. They only get to a few feet long and are very slim and lightweight. They eat little reef fish, not divers

The one that you will hear of more aggressive behaviour from are the Oceanic White Tips, or OWTs. They are opportunistic feeders. They live in the very top layer of the coean and trawl around for things to eat. This means that they come into contact with humans quite often, and will test items to see if they are edible, hence they display a certain boldness. Some boats have fed them, the crew thinking perhaps that getting the OWT's in close will lead to happy guests and better tips. This is where there is trouble. Don't let your boat do this if you see it (although it is unlikely they will). Don't snorkel with OWT's. If you are diving and see one, then that's fine. Just stick with the group. There was one attack about 5 years ago on a French snorkeller (no think about the number of divers and snorkellers in the Red Sea each year). The story that went around was that the boat had been feeding, and that she had been very eager to get close and had swum out towards the shark. She got bitten, and it was blood loss that killed here, rather than "being eaten".

Honestly, I actively seek out sharks when I dive. I love them. Just relax and enjoy seeing them, if you do. They are beautiful and pose far, far less risk to you than the act of diving itself does. Once you see one you will probably be hooked on them too.

Best of luck for your trip.

Paul_c said:

there was a shamr dive sites thing which had all the known shark attacks listed something like 7 in 20 years and probable causes.

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Probably not the same site, but - 1580-2007 Statistics of Shark Attacks on Divers Worldwide
As we all know, there are lies, damn lies, and statistics.

But, if you look at the link above, there have only been 2 reported/recorded shark attacks on divers in Egypt. Same for England, and, believe it or not, there were 7 reported/recorded for Italy.

Sharks, generally, don't like divers, the bubbles really put them off (apart from Whale Sharks in Belize).

Don't wory about it, and if you are lucky enough to see a shark, thank your lucky stars.

The shark population worldwide has been decimated. I think Oceanic Whitetip numbers are down something like 90% in 50 years I vaguely recall a figure of 100 million sharks a year are killed by us.
Compare that to 60-70 attcks (and only 4 or 5 deaths) attributable to sharks every year - ISAF Statistics for the Top Ten Worldwide Locations with the Highest Shark Attack Activity (1999-2009)

I would state that we are much more of a threat to them, than they are to us.
Yet another way man is f**king up the ocean/planet.

The (university) website in the links is full of info about shark attack statistics, but I have no idea how realistic any of it is, it could all be total tosh.

Apparantly big yellow rebreather boxes are much more interesting than cod liver oil. The silky shark on the Brothers waited for Daz to leave the water so I was the only one left on the 5m hang line under the boat when it circled me three times very closely (like about 3ft away). I know it was just checking me out and curious, it was very relaxed in its movements and it swam off a little distance after that, but I will confess that I did kind of bolt for the ladder at that point!

We saw the silky again the following dive together with its mate, and once again it came in close for a good look at the divers but didnt bump anyone. We were on a "Project Shark" week with a shark expert Elke Bojanowski on board. Apparantly although an OWT was the shark hanging onto the French tourist when she was pulled on board a boat, the bite wounds suggest that a tiger shark may have been the original culprit and the OWT was just scavenging at that point.

Also seen were Grey reef sharks, hammerheads, a thresher, and just as we were leaving an Oceanic Whitetip showed up. I've decided meeting sharks up close & personal is an awsome experience, but I'd rather have a few more buddies around when it happens!

PS as a plug for Elke, if anyone gets any photos of sharks - defintitely OWTs, and now also grey reefs and silkies, she'd like to have a copy for her project
longimanus.info to identify the individuals and learn more about them.