Epic Lemon shark dive today on Emerald Charters +

[Amazz]

I have been diving with Randy for years. Never have I seen up close lemon shark action like this before. More than that, my two dives today with Lemon Sharks convinced me that sharks are brilliant, which is a step above intelligent. These dives aren't for everybody. Some may disagree with adding chum to the situation. If you feel that way, fine. Please start a new thread and don't debate it here. The site is outside of state waters. We all have choices and I made mine to dive with Randy today. It was AWESOME!

Dive one was Hole in the Wall area. We had around 8 bull sharks during the dive and they stayed with us during our safety stop. Weird was they were above and below us. The captain said the fins were breaking the surface. No chum in the water. The bulls were just doing their thing. It was a little unnerving.

Dives two and three: Lemon Sharks! The site is around 80 ft. The lemon sharks are frisky and friendly. They stayed with us for 45 minutes. The most aggressive were the two nurse sharks. What I noticed was that the lemons treated us like mere obstacles in the ocean. They cruised by within arm's reach without taking any interest. They investigate with their noses. Several times a lemon would come right up to my light grey strobes and sniff without taking a bite. I had several touches to my fins, and once to my head. I observed a lemon swim up behind another diver's legs and turn away after lightly touching with the nose. They followed us to the safety stop and eventually to the surface. We spent 50 minutes with over a dozen sharks.

The dive was fairly well controlled. Do not wear anything white. We were briefed to stay south of Randy and the buffet line. We entered as a group and stayed as a group. When Randy ascends, we all ascend. I never felt threatened around these sharks. I can't say the same about the bulls on the earlier dive. But that was complete nature, no dead fish in the water. The resident Goliath Grouper on the lemon site was completely charming and worth the dive even if there were no sharks. Lemon sharks will be around until the end of Feb.

 

[HalcyonDaze]

By my count I fired off about 372 still shots and burned up a 16-gig SD card in my GoPro (~2 hours of video). Going to take a while to sort through and edit it all. Wish I'd made the investment in strobes for my Olympus and a filter for the GoPro before this trip, but the lemons and the jewfish got so close that I was able to get some very nice shots. Hell of a day on the water.

Now, if on top of the bulls and lemons we'd found that whale shark that was supposedly cruising around the deep ledge and Katharine had dropped on down from Daytona, it would have gone from "Epic" to "Ascended into Heaven" status :cool2:.

 

[guyharrisonphoto]

Hubris . . .

 

[sportxlh]

........These dives aren't for everybody......

That probably describes me pretty well, but I still enjoy reading other divers accounts of these dives and seeing the photos and videos that get posted by Murfdizzle, you, HalcyonDaze and others.

.....The site is outside of state waters.....

Glad you clarified that the location where the feeding dives take place are outside of Florida territorial waters

 

[HalcyonDaze]

That probably describes me pretty well, but I still enjoy reading other divers accounts of these dives and seeing the photos and videos that get posted by Murfdizzle, you, HalcyonDaze and others.

Point. I have yet to take a friend up on an Emerald dive (granted, I've only been out three times myself in the past eight months and in the past year I've done a dive trip with a friend exactly once). I have a three-tier system I use for ranking potential dive buddies and picking sites: newbie/inexperienced - Keys reefs; fairly experienced - West Palm with either Sandy's Sunday or Narcosis; on top of their ****ing game - Emerald. I don't have many diver friends who fall into that last category and even then I'd prefer to evaluate them on a West Palm dive first.

The sharkage is a concern but not at the top of the list. The conditions in Jupiter are fairly extreme by my standards (depth and current) and if you're inattentive, well hand-feeding sharks is a picnic with mermaids by comparison.

 

[guyharrisonphoto]

Is there an 80' site off of Jupiter that is outside state waters? I understand the deep ledges are, but shallower sites?

 

[Amazz]

It's legal and in Federal waters. If you don't have fish, the sharks won't go anywhere near you. So no worries to anybody cruising around there on a non shark dive.

Is there an 80' site off of Jupiter that is outside state waters? I understand the deep ledges are, but shallower sites?

 

[guyharrisonphoto]

OK, so long as no one is chumming the Juno Ledges or other regular sites . . . It's not necessarily true that all is well if you are not spearing or chumming. Sharks can and do learn to associate divers with speared fish, feeding or blood chumm which can incite an aggressive approach when divers first appear, even if there is no chum or food. That, I think, is what you saw with the bulls. Didn't even Randy stop spearing trips to the Tunnels for a time because the sharks became too aggressive? Inciting the behavior can have lasting effects, and impact divers visiting the sites at other times.

I am not and don't want to be the police of what's legal. I just offer a cautionary voice. The posts show a feeling that the divers are masters of this situation, dominate the sharks, can predict and know the behavior, are immune from the sharks' feeding instincts, and that the sharks show intelligent self-restraint instead of an evolutionary caution against attacking big prey, which can be overcome by frenzy or stimulus. All taking place all in extremely deep water and strong currents, adding DCS risk to the mix. There was nothing "well controlled" about any of it. It is an unpredictable situation of high risk, and, from what I see, it is getting even more dangerous and out of control as time goes on and people get away with it without injury. The shark behavior in the videos was just short of feeding frenzy, complete with contact between sharks and divers.

Many people can create high-risk situations and survive, even go their entire lives without harm. Just look at drunk drivers, many of whom never have an accident or kill anyone, or even get caught. That does not mean they are the master of their automobiles or of the highways. When on occasion one kills themself (or someone else), do we say, "well, it's safe because almost everyone has done it for years without incident?"

Or, do we say "the risk is unacceptable because it is just a matter of time?"

And before anyone says that these divers only put themselves at risk, is that true? What about the encouragement of other divers to go on these trips for photo bragging rights under the impression that things are controlled by shark experts? What about their families?

 

[drrich2]

Guy:

I think most any reasonable person thinking it through would conclude there's likely some elevated theoretical risk. Then again, we undertake some elevated theoretical risk when we dive, vs. staying on the boat.

I've read some of the postings about concerns regarding predator behavior at varied places, presumed due to lionfish feeding, for example. Predators includes sharks, grouper and even barracuda in such discussions.

That said, chummed shark dives are not new, and seem to have a good success rate. Let's say for sake of argument that someday someone does get seriously bitten; perhaps an arm or leg badly bitten, considerable blood loss, fast exit, rushed to the hospital, graphic wound photo in a thread about it posted under Accidents and Mishaps.

Is that going to prove chummed shark dives are wrong? Or too dangerous?

We've just had a big discussion in the Eagles Nest thread about keeping sites open to cave divers, despite some occasional deaths. This is a somewhat like situation. The possibility of a non-shark dive diver getting nailed would be a bit different, granted, but I would think the risks would be much greater for those doing the chummed dives, and thus far, they seem okay.

The drunken driver analogy you put forth is a good one. Yet many of us have driven while quite sleepy at points in our lives, despite perhaps similar dangerousness. Unless and until we have more hard data on shark dive risks, perhaps proceeding cautiously is a good policy?

I'd like to dive with the lemon sharks someday, and see them up close. Now, one bumping into my body deciding whether to take a bite would be somewhat upsetting...

Richard.

 

[guyharrisonphoto]

Like I said, I'm not the police, just a voice (it seems) in the wilderness . . . .

I am not cave certified so I can't make a comparison to what happened in Eagle's nest, except that people with even less training than I tried that dive. That is crazy. But, blood-in-the-water dives with predators is not?

It is very possible that more untrained divers than people realize dive in caves and never have a fatality. Does not make it safe or a good idea, and neither is that shark dive.

Most (in fact all that I ever heard of until now) blood-chummed dives are in cages for obvious reasons and do not use speared thrashing bleeding fish for extra fun. Most (in fact all that I ever heard of) cageless dives (Abernethy, Stuart Cove, UNEXCO) use dead fish washed clean of blood, so that scent becomes an attractant but does not usually trigger active feeding impulsesm and if feeding takes place it is by a single trained diver, in armour, away from the group. I have been on all of these dives, which are still plenty risky but with a much higher level of safety and predictability due that practice, and due to strict rules for diver behavior (none of which I saw being implemented in the videos here), and being conducted in relatively shallow water as well.

The increased risk of the shark behavior I saw in these videos is by no means "theoretical". It's like driving after having 5 shots. I suppose an adrenaline high has the same effect.

By the way, come on down! I hear that the lemons are showing up for their winter migration and can be seen pretty regularly without the feeding. I'm waiting for a calm spell to get out again.