Shark Dive

When volunteers first arrive at the lab, the first thing they do is get whisked away to Triangle Rocks for a shark dive before they can even ask, "is this safe"? Fortunately, the kind of people that voluntarily go to a place called the Shark Lab are generally people who find the idea of swimming in the middle of a feeding frenzy cool.

Just south of Bimini is an area called Triangle Rocks, cleverly named because three rocky outcrops form more or less of a triangle. Just to the western edge of the triangle is "the arena," a sandy area in about 20 feet of water where we anchor up the boats for the shark dive.

These feedings have been going on for so long that the sharks usually start showing up when they hear the boat engines, well before any food is thrown into the water. Most are Caribbean Reef Sharks, plus a few Blacknose.

Once anchored, a line is trailed out behind the boat. Decked out in snorkel gear, armed with underwater cameras, everyone slips into the water and hangs onto the line, shoulder to shoulder. The idea is to create an illusion of one big mass of people so the sharks don't try and swim between anyone. (Of course, once when I did this, some space opened up between two people on one side of me, and I looked over just in time to see a 5-ft reef shark bully his way between their shoulders. GREAT photo op. )

Small pieces of cut up fish are thrown into the water in front of the line of snorkelers, and the sharks go to town in front of us. Usually, around 10 sharks show up, and they range in size from about 4ft to about 6ft.

The sharks pretty much stick to the area where the food is being thrown in, but occassionally they get a little too close to the line of snorkelers. If so, we're told to kick them. However, they usually don't get close enough to actually make contact with because the sight of a big fin coming at them or even just the pressure wave from our fins is enough to make them turn around. (I've only had to truly kick one once, and that was because I was looking the other way and didn't see that it was right on me until I turned around.)

After a while, the sharks are full, and they stop immediately attacking the food as it's thrown in. At that point, we all let go of the line and swim feely among the sharks. Unfortunately, once they're fed, they don't really have much interest in sticking around when all these crazy humans are swimming around trying to take pictures of them. They hang around for a bit, circling near the bottom, but eventually they swim off.

In the area around the "arena", you will see a TON of triggerfish, maybe an eel in the rocky ledge near the bottom, sea fans, and sometimes a stingray passing through.

A lot of people, including myself, have mixed feelings about these shark dives. It's clearly not a natural scenario, so even though it's certainly cool to see all these sharks, the experience loses something because it's artificial. However, there are specific instances when the ability to pull in the sharks is helfpful. For example, Shark Defense, Inc. is testing its experimental shark repellant, and to have an area where they can readily bring in sharks is incredibly useful. Once, when I was out on a repellant test with the Chemical Brothers, as they call Mike and Eric, the sharks came in as usual, Eric hopped into the water with a Ghostbusters-style jetpack full of repellant on his back, and the sharks bolted as soon as he released the chemical. Sadly, I don't have a picture of Eric's ridiculous contraption. But the point is, for experimental purposes, the availability of the sharks at Triangle Rocks can be helpful.