This week we departed for our weekly shark expedition with a north wind on our beam making our vessel roll back and forth all the way across the Gulf Stream current. After clearing customs we headed north and started diving at one of our favorite sites, “Shark Tooth Ridge” The group seemed as though they wanted a little time to get comfortable before they saw what they came here to see. I though this spot would give them at least thirty minutes to get adjusted. I was wrong! Within the first ten minutes our first tiger showed up and by the end of the dive we had a great hammerhead as well. Fortunately, the tiger shark was Begonia measuring only 6 to 7 feet, so at least their first tiger was our smallest one! Only a couple of guests saw the great hammerhead. Most of the divers had completed two dives when the visibility from the outgoing tide started to go bad. We moved the boat to a calm anchorage and started to prepare for the next day after dinner.

This morning we moved to the Chain section of Tiger Beach. During the dives we observed three different tiger sharks that we knew, Relentless, Begonia and Toni. While I was observing Relentless I saw her bite a lemon shark that was in her way. The bite moved the bleeding lemon shark quickly, but it immediately turned and came right back. It is amazing to me that after reading so many books describing the tiger shark as a vicious predator, that I have rarely observed them in nature actually attacking any species. I believe this was a bite to get the lemon to move but not enough to cause an attack, since the lemons seem to be quite annoying to the tigers. All of the species seem to exist together without conflict. Since observing them from late 1980’s I believe that these species of sharks are opportunistic feeders waiting for a dead, sick or injured animal to show up. I did get an image of the bite on the lemon with a close up lens, which you can see in the images below. I was also able to get much closer to Toni this week in order to take images of her mating scars. Her entire hind end is covered with bites.

I saw the lemon shark we refer to as “Tag” again this week. This was the lemon shark tagged by the brilliant shark scientist Dr. Gruber roughly one month ago. Last week I had observed her rolling upside down and scratching her tagged area in the sand, probably trying to remove it. This week I noticed that the holding section of the tag was no longer holding it. Obviously she was successful. I send the images I take to different scientist and researchers to help them any way I can. We all need to work together to save sharks from the fining industry.

After the tide turned we moved to Ginormous where we continued to enjoy our sharks until sunset. The sea was very calm all day. We shot split images at sunset of the lemons at the surface. It was a very beautiful day. After dinner, Jim Rozzi made a comment about our chef Wade after sampling just six of his delicious meals. He said “It is a good thing he isn’t prettier” I must say that Wade has been with us for almost four years and no one has ever approached his level of service as a chef. After Christmas he is going to a fill in position when his new schedule allows it. He is going back to school to learn computers and get into that industry. Joe fell asleep in the salon and his friends descended on him like vultures on road kill, painting him with red fingernail polish. I spent the end of the day giving more Photoshop lessons. We spent the night anchored at this site.

After a calm nights rest and a beautiful sunrise we moved the boat to an incredible place called “Cover Shot”. Of all the reefs here, this one has the most awesome opportunities for taking nine different cover shots in one location. During the day we were blessed with three different tiger sharks, although none of them were are regulars and did not provide any really close encounters. Just before the sun set, Captain Cripe spotted a small pod of roughly 4 to 6 pilot whales which we quickly attempted to follow without success. We did however find some Atlantic spotted dolphins that some of the guest swam with until dark.

This morning we woke to a strong fifteen mile an hour wind from the south, dark rain clouds and no sunrise. The water was very clear though despite the high waves. We started diving early and dove all the way until 2:30 almost without stopping. The site we were at was “Classic Tiger Beach” and she was showing all her splendor. At least 6 tigers were amongst us most of the day, including Cherry Sue, Relentless, Begonia, Mini T, Milo and Kimberly. Everyone had a super day. Wile we were taking a break a water spout (tornado on the water) grazed the side of the boat. It came on us without warning and passed just as quickly. Luckily, there was no damage. It was very interesting to watch especially at such close vicinity! At roughly four pm the wind suddenly shifted from south east to west and the anchor pulled and caused us to move to a calmer anchorage. Some of the guest did dive again at this site because all the sharks had once again followed us. It was still rough as I went to sleep.

It sounded like someone wanted to come into the boat from the outside as I awoke in my bunk this morning. The waves were even bigger. With the wind increasing we took this day as a rough weather day and played with the tigers at 16gig. Here the visibility is too low to allow diving, although we do still have a wonderful time playing with the sharks at the stern while we shoot surface shots. Paul put his video camera on a pole to get it away from the boat and had it munched by a tiger. Everyone was laughing so hard at the entire event. The tiger shark must have been attracted to the electrical signature as there was no bait around him. I decided to name the smallest tiger shark Kai, after Racquel’s unborn future daughter. At this young age having her bite Paul’s Camera gives us high hopes for her. She may even approach Relentless’ numbers of cameras taken (eleven), when she gets older. This shark is roughly 4 or 5 feet long and very curious. Hopefully the weather report will be accurate and the seas will subside allowing us to get back to diving tomorrow!

A beautiful sunrise and a light wind greeted us early as we departed to Hammer Time this morning. With the incoming tide we were greeted by 5 tigers at a time with a total of probably seven different animals. Of course there were lemons and reef sharks as well. TC, the tiger shark I named after the beautiful girl I am seeing had mating scars on her face. Hopefully she is pregnant (the shark, haha)!! I was quite surprised to see how little the bite mark was. See the images below. At 2pm I moved the boat back to Tiger Beach to do our last dive, Monster Chaos. Five different tigers showed up for the dive as well including the tagged tiger shark from a month ago as well as Kimberly.

During the week we identified several other new tiger sharks that we also named for our photo ID book. All of them were females and were named by me after my hard working staff. Their names were Fran, Nicki, Christina and Janine. Every week our photographers have the opportunity to help us ID and name all the tiger sharks by collecting images and giving us their images which will be used to get a census of how many we have to push for more conservation in the Bahamas.

We all enjoyed a nice smooth crossing back to Florida. I hope we have the opportunity to see our new friends from this trip back again soon for another trip.

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Before leaving this week the crew was very worried about the high winds, but as forecasted the winds died making our crossing very nice for this time of year. For the first time in a long time the guests are mostly from the US. Two are from Canada. Expectations are high to see the large tigers as well as the great hammerhead. Many of the guests said they would be happy with any sharks as they have been diving a while without seeing many. It immediately reminds me how fortunate we are here in the Bahamas to have such a diversity and abundance of sharks. I often wonder if protection for these animals will arrive like many places way too late after someone has killed them all.

I started out this week by taking our guests to “Ginormous”. Immediately the guests were engrossed in taking images of the Caribbean reef sharks as well as a very large green eel that was posed beautifully in line with the path of the reef sharks making a great opportunity for vertical images with both creatures as well as a very colorful reef. After the second group arrived, my favorite tiger shark came quietly straight in towards me making her presence known by her immense size!

Emma, our very gentle giant of fourteen feet put up with this new group’s lack of respect as many rushed towards her with the hopes of getting a good image. She swam between us and around us as many of the divers completely forgot about some of the things we went over in the two hour briefing on how to dive with large sharks safely. I pulled the bait from the bottom and sent some of the group to the surface to go over the rules once again.

Sometimes in the excitement of such a beautiful creature we are overwhelmed by them so much we do things that would not be tolerated by a normal wild shark. Emma is so considerate and tolerant of these new shark divers. Is was amazing to see how even though we closed in on her space she still looked behind herself so she would not hit us with her tail as she maneuvered between us.

Once the group heard once again what we expected or should I say demanded from them the next dive went much better. A total of three very large tigers showed up and the guests were all very happy. At dinner the discussion amongst the guests was about how surreal the dives were because of these beautiful tigers. It is so nice to see people appreciate nature in this way. If there was just some way I could show everyone how special these creatures are, I don’t think they would be killing them like they are now, just for a bowl of soup. We spent the night at a nice anchorage and almost everyone crashed very early.

This morning as I grabbed my coffee I quickly walked out to the stern of the boat to see if any sharks were around as well as watch to watch the sunrise. Beautiful lemon sharks were swimming around the boat, so I threw in some crates of fish to draw them in closer as well as to try to capture to moment with my camera. Many of the guests followed. It was a perfect way to start out another magical day.

Our first dive was at a site we have been going to since 2000 called Mt. Mokarran. I named it after the great hammerhead (Sphyrna mokarran) where we have had tremendous success in years past. On my very first dive, in addition to a ten foot tiger we had one of the smallest great hammerheads I have ever seen, just 4 to 5 feet long. It never came close, probably because it was so small and the photography stations were all filled with bigger lemons, reefs and the tiger but it was gorgeous. The little hammer shaped head moved about trying to figure out was going on although I could tell it was afraid. Hopefully this smart instinct will keep it alive.

After seeing this beautiful baby my mind quickly shifted to the last tiny great hammerhead I had seen, which was many years ago in Palm Beach, Florida at Phil Foster Park. Although this was a very sad viewing because I couldn’t save it, I must share it with you because it had such an impact on me that day as much as it does today. I was loading my dive vessel with divers as I heard the people on the bridge yelling that it was a hammerhead shark. A bunch of people were fishing, so I quickly ran over there, which was unfortunately quite some distance.

As I got within viewing distance but not close enough to yell, I saw young boys beating the shark repeatedly with a stick. I was horrified! The tiny hammerhead was not more than two feet long and as I approached I could see it was already dead. As I got within speaking distance playing stupid, I said “ Did you catch that hammerhead? I give you a hundred dollars for it!” Quickly the young boy pulled it out of the bucket with its head smashed in. In a very disgruntled voice I said, “It’s DEAD! Who killed it? It isn’t worth anything dead! Why would you kill such a beautiful animal? You just lost a hundred dollars!” The boys just stood there looking at this animal with its head bludgeoned. I walked away wondering why we as humans think it is OK to kill everything as if we are better than the animals we kill? How long will we allow sharks and other animals to be killed like this?

My second dive was off the scale as far as wild adventure was concerned. As I entered the water Sean with one off the guests were pointing below the boat. It was a second great hammerhead, roughly ten feet long. It was swimming on its side heading to the photographic stations while it watched us. I have seen them do this often probably to be able to get a better look at us.

As I approached the photographic stations I could see three large tiger sharks! Emma, Scar and T were in the middle of roughly 7 lemon sharks as well as 20 reef sharks. Emma the favorite of every single trip because of her personality immediately swam out to check me out. As she approached I reached out and scratched her above her eyes like I have been doing since we met roughly five years ago. Her disposition of being such a gentle giant with such tolerance for us humans has earned her the love of almost everyone who has the pleasure of meeting her. She swam back to the reef to join the others. “TC” approached me next. I had just named her last week and was very happy to see her. I named her after my girlfriend, TC Fromme. I hope the two of them will have the pleasure of meeting some time in the future. The photographic stations were being destroyed by these immense creatures at least from a photographic sense because of the back scatter they were producing.

As one of the guests, Jeff approached, I watched Emma rip two crates from the bottom as she headed straight to the surface she crushed one of them and sucked out all of its contents. I knew it wouldn’t be long before they removed all the bait, so I started moving the crates into a crevice that I hoped they would not enter! While doing this the sixteen foot tiger named Scar moved into position for a perfect image to be taken of my new friend Jeff. Make sure you look at the images as I know this one will stand out clearly as a fantastic diver/tiger image. I hope he feels that it is good enough to grace the walls of his home and business. With the crates tucked away in the crevice the action slowed down. Many very large tigers swam over the area looking for the bait for the remaining part of my dive. During this time Jeff had seen at least 5 tigers, but believed there might have been 6 or 7 around. I surfaced early because I had spent most of my air trying to save the crates from being removed.

My final dive was the most enjoyable for me as the gentle giants moved about us providing many photographic opportunities on the very colorful reef. With roughly one hour left of daylight, we moved the boat to another location to do a night dive. In route, we were delayed with an unexpected wild dolphin encounter by roughly a dozen atlantic spotted dolphin. Seven of the guests jumped in to enjoy this wonderful event that nature had provided. It always amazes me how some people do not seize every magical event that nature constantly provides. I hope those of you reading this will be ready when it presents itself to you!

Anchoring at dusk, we enjoyed dinner and then the guests did a night dive with lemon sharks and tigers. I crashed right after dinner. Everyday the wind dies just a little more. Another beautiful sunrise blessed us this morning. Fewer guests were awake probably because of the night dive as well as the tremendous amount of diving they are doing. We dove a very shallow reef dive this morning and then moved over to the sugar wreck for the rest of the day. It was a beautiful day.

A small tiger shark by the name of “Mini T” kept us entertained at both places. The tiger shark that we named last week TC was also present and becoming friendlier all day. I really hope TC makes it to the ranks of the super models one day. One of TC’s markings make her easily distinguishable. Her second dorsal fin which is much smaller is actually rolled over to the right. I can’t imagine how this would have happened unless she has been that way since birth. She also has very little pigmentation under her chin. We finished the day with another night dive at tiger beach. This was the first opportunity I had to get images of the lemon shark that Dr. Gruber who is a very good friend of mine, tagged two weeks ago. During the night dive I found a reef squid that I followed around taking images and without realizing it I took a beautiful reflection shot at the surface. See the image below to find it.

Today we spent the entire calm day at the Chain section of Tiger Beach. We had 4 tigers with us most of the day and probably 25 lemons. I was shooting macro shark face images when a lemon shark stopped swimming in front of me and started two invite the remoras to clean its teeth by opening its mouth. Two lemon sharks actually started cleaning them which allowed me a wonderful opportunity. These are some of the best images I have of this type of behavior. TC was enjoying our company more and more. I think she has finally realized that we will not ever hurt her. Begonia, Mini T and Relentless were also there.

This morning we started out with another outstanding sunrise before we headed off to a dive site named “Hammer Time”. As usual, the sharks just follow us from site to site. The guests really enjoyed watching them behind the boat as we moved. One of the crew saw a small hammerhead, but none of the guests did. This site has a tremendous abundance of gorgeous soft corals. See the images below to see what I am talking about. TC was once again becoming friendlier. We have not given her any fish yet, but I am sure she will become a major player in no time if she keeps this up. Everyone enjoyed a delicious Thanksgiving dinner prepared by our excellent chef Wade Walcher. Wade has been with us for many many years and I must say he has never disappointed us at meal times. He is going back to school to become a computer speacialists as well s our fill in chef. We will certainly miss him here. People like him are far and few between and I feel blessed to be able to call him my friend.

Today is our last day and everyone took my advice and got up very early. Our first dive started out at my favorite part of Tiger Beach which is all white sand. I call it Classic Tiger Beach, because this is the location that I first discovered such an abundance of tiger sharks. I love the contrast in the early morning with the shadows against the ripples of the sand. We had lots of tiger sharks and probably thirty five lemon sharks this morning.

One of the new large tiger sharks we are naming “Cherry Sue” after one of our guests who is on board this week. It was her husbands idea to name this new shark after her, which I quickly accepted because this couple are two of the nicest people you could ever hope to meet. They have been diving on our day boat “Deep Obsession” for roughly five years ago when they first started diving and they just keep coming back for more. The new large fourteen foot shark has beautiful markings with very little scars except for two lines on her left side. She swam right next to Emma so it was easy to see that she is a very large tiger shark that hasn’t missed any meals. We all hope that she hangs out for a while in this safe place. Bob McNerney named another one of our new tigers covered with mating scars “Toni”. A Third new tiger shark was named Milo by David Harley. He named the tiger shark after his 6 year old son. I sure hope we receive some type of laws soon to help protect these beautiful creatures from being killed.

After lunch we moved back to Hammer Time to spend the rest of the day. At this place TC and Begonia followed us right behind the boat so we could see them as soon as we moored the boat. At the end we did our world famous “Monster Chaos” for the grand finale before making a glassy smooth crossing back to Palm Beach, Florida. Make sure you check out the images below! As I think back about the weeks events I can’t help out thinking about how blessed we are to meet such nice and interesting people almost every week!

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