The trip started off strong. It didn’t take long before we had a large tiger at the back of the boat. To our surprise it was a male tiger that we brought in first. It is very rare to see a male in the Tiger Beach area, but he was not what we were looking for, so after a few samples we sent him on his way and quickly reset hoping to get another tiger immediately. It wasn’t long after that we had a very large female tiger fighting us from the back of the boat. Once we had her under control it was time to get to work.

The group came together very quickly working as one efficient team. All 14 people on the boat had a job to do which was to safely and quickly keep the beautiful tiger comfortable while gathering information. We started by placing a sea water pump in the sharks mouth. This allows oxygenated water to pass over the gills, keeping her breathing and much calmer. At the same time others were working quickly to get blood samples, measurements, muscle biopsies and tissue samples. Some of the blood will be used before the shark is even released to analyze stress levels. The next step is what we were all most excited about. An ultrasound machine was used on each shark to confirm if the shark was pregnant or not; we believe this to be the first time ultrasound has be used on a large living sharks in the wild. To our luck, this tiger shark was pregnant. With this knowledge, combined with the new state of the art Satellite Tag, this may have become one of the most important sharks in the world for conservation.

After we removed any hooks she gathered in the past from fisherman or stray lines, she was set free to be an ambassador for her species. Throughout the trip we were lucky enough to get 9 more mature female tiger sharks to the back of the boat. Much to our surprise, all of these tigers were pregnant as well. It was more than we could have hoped for and an amazing finding for Neil and his team. With the samples and the tagging, we will now be able to see how pregnant these sharks are and possibly time the month and location they will be giving birth. Hopefully this information can be used to make a strong case for protecting many areas outside of the Bahamas.

Once the team was happy with the amount of research they collected, we decided to show them how we get to interact with these beautiful animals. We quickly geared up and slipped into the water. It was clear and the sharks were plentiful. We had at least half a dozen to admire in the water, including Emma, who always gives an amazing show. Even one of the recently tagged tigers showed up on one of our dives, she seemed unaffected from our previously encounter with her.

This was an amazing trip, and these divers and ocean advocates worked so well together to pull off some successful research for sharks. Thank you to Dr. Hammerschlag and his team, the University of Miami, the RJ Dunlap Marine Conservation Program and the great group of guests who joined us for this memorable, groundbreaking trip.

On our way out to Tiger Beach we stopped off in the Gulf Stream to release some very young turtles, hopefully giving them a much better chance at survival.

After a quick snorkel with the turtles we headed straight to one of our deeper reefs. All of our favorite supermodels were around, including Emma, Jamin and TC. The young tiger that we have seen on the past few trips was there. We were also greeted by Cristina, one of the sharks tagged with Guy Harvey and his team. It was good to see how healthy she is after almost a year, and by the end of the week she was starting to act like a supermodel.

Some of the dive sites we visited were Crystal Tiger, Ginormous, Shark Paradise and the Sugar Wreck. It seemed like the action on the deeper reefs was the best this week, so we were able to get some beautiful shots with the bright colors of the corals mixed in.

Of course we spent one afternoon with the dolphins. It didn’t take long before we had a group of Atlantic Spotted Dolphins riding the bow and ready to give the guests a great snorkel. The real dolphin action came at night though. With about a dozen of them feeding all around our boat, everyone got an amazing show. Some of the group would have stayed in till sunrise if possible.

After the last dive everyone agreed that it was an incredible trip. The only complaint was that it was already time to go home.

We started the week in the shallows at Tiger Beach at a site we call Crystal Tiger. It gave us a chance to catch some lionfish (which made a great meal later that week) before the lemon sharks started to show. It wasn’t long before we had quite a few lemons. It took a little while for the first tiger shark, but it was worth the wait. We eventually saw a very young tiger, only about 6 feet. We think this might have been Gabi, from our last trip. Once she got comfortable with the divers, and vice-versa, more tigers started to show. Eventually Emma came in, looking as pregnant as can be. By the end of the week we got up to 7 tiger sharks at once, including 3 babies and 2 very large tigers.

We mixed in some beautiful reef dives, including Hammertime and Ginormous, where we were able to enjoy the company of Max, the grouper, one friendly nurse shark and, of course, countless reef sharks. We also did two night dives. About 30 minutes into the first night dive, a large tiger named TC showed up and gave the divers quite a show. The second night dive had 3 tigers around, including one baby tiger that seemed to have never seen a dive light before. In addition to diving, we spent some time getting lemon snaps and Mike brought out the “fin cam” to get the shark’s view of the boat during lemon snaps (see video below.)

To change up the shark action, we spent a day looking for dolphins. We were very lucky to have some of the best encounters the crew has enjoyed to date. Before we even made it to the dolphin grounds, we had a pod of Atlantic spotted dolphins riding the bow of the boat. By the end of the afternoon we had come across a very playful pod that was playing keep-away with one of our guest’s scarf. Luckily, Mike was able to get some great video of the encounter with his GoPro camera. A few of the guests were lucky enough to spot a sailfish cruising by. We wouldn’t have believed it, but one of them snapped a beautiful picture. We finished off the day with night dolphins. There were more than we could count playing around the boat. The guests and crew all enjoyed sharing in the excitement.

One of our guest, “Minki,” did her 600th dive with us this week – Congratulations! We then ended the week with a macro dive on the Sugar wreck, where we saw some nurse sharks, a stingray, many juvenile tropical fish and my favorite – some flamingo tongues. It was an amazing week, with an amazing group. Matt spent his free time making an awesome video of the trip, (he also wrote most of the blog – I just edited and posted.) Enjoy!