Safety of Shark Awareness Dive

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divedadepths

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Hello everybody-
I will be going to St. Maarten in a few weeks, and one of dives offered by one of the dive operators is a shark awareness dive. Here is the link to their website. Dive Safaris - St Maarten's Best Scuba Diving Experience! My mother does not think this is very safe and doesent want me to do it. She is wondering if anybody out there knows of anybody that has been injured or killed on a shark awarness dive. I know that divers have been injured or killed by sharks on regular dives, but what about shark awareness dives, where the sharks are being fed by professionals? She says she wants the truth hahaha! Thanks

Max
 
Hello everybody-
I will be going to St. Maarten in a few weeks, and one of dives offered by one of the dive operators is a shark awareness dive. Here is the link to their website. Dive Safaris - St Maarten's Best Scuba Diving Experience! My mother does not think this is very safe and doesent want me to do it. She is wondering if anybody out there knows of anybody that has been injured or killed on a shark awarness dive. I know that divers have been injured or killed by sharks on regular dives, but what about shark awareness dives, where the sharks are being fed by professionals? She says she wants the truth hahaha! Thanks

Max

#1.... there is a risk of injury or death anytime, anywhere, diving or not. You are more likely to die from getting hit in the head by a falling coconut on the beach than by a shark in the ocean.

#2....sharks have not killed anyone on a "regular dive" that I have ever heard of anywhere. The recent shark related death was on a dive where chum was in the water. That dive was done for several years by hundreds if not thousands of divers and this is the first reported death.

#3...I am much more afraid of jellyfish, urchins, and fire coral than I am of any fish, particularly sharks. Damselfish bite divers all the time when they come too close to their nests - luckily they are small so they rarely draw blood. People get injured by fire coral (nasty burns/rashes that last for months) pretty often, as do they step on urchins. Tell your mom she should be more worried about those little guys than the big ones.

#3.. sharks are usually afraid of divers. They swim the other direction normally. When someone is feeding them, however, they will stay around, and are only interested in the person with the fish. Don't reach out and try to pet them as they swim by, they are wild just like the lions and tigers at the zoo.

does this help???


Just my 2 cents.
robin:D
 
None that I've heard of. I did the one at Stuart Cove's in the Bahamas and it was awesome. If you click on my profile you can see one of the pictures from our shark dive. I would say do it and have fun. We only live once in this life.
 
Sick picture diverdwn71! Thanks guys. This should keep my worry wart mother a little less worried. I cant wait
 
Don't show her the pic. It won't help your case. :eek:)

We had a big nurse shark lay down right in front of me and my wife, so we quit watching the feeding and pet the nurse shark. To say it was awesome is a understatment. I would do it again in a heart beat.
 
Hey,

I did the very same dive with Dive Safari's last April in St. Maartin. It was a fantastic experience. They are very professional and it is a very tightly controlled dive.

I had a fear of deep water, so I became a scuba diver.

I had a fear of sharks, so I decided to do the shark dive last year.

I thought I was going to be pretty freaked out, and I wasn't, mostly because we came across a black tip reef shark (the ones you'll see on your shark dive) the day previously and you come to realize that they have no real interest in you, unless you happen to have a frozen fish on the end of a stick....

Tell your Mom to chill, that it will be one of the most exciting dives of your life and it is as safe as any dive can be. I probably was in more danger doing my shipwreck penetration course than I was on the shark dive.

Don't forget to bring an underwater camera - they sell them there if you don't have one.

Really cool byproduct of doing the dive? When you get home, especially if you have photos, everybody will think you are this really cool, Evil Knievel (are you old enough to know who he is??) guy who swam with man-eaters......
 
Yep I know Evil Knievel. Im 16. I cant wait. I am into photography, and have my own camera and strobe. Do they let you use strobes? I would think that it may distract the sharks or something. I think i saw a strobe flash in one of the youtube videos, but im not sure.
 
Don't show her the pic. It won't help your case. :eek:)

We had a big nurse shark lay down right in front of me and my wife, so we quit watching the feeding and pet the nurse shark. To say it was awesome is a understatment. I would do it again in a heart beat.

Would avoid petting any shark. Nurse sharks are the cause of many a bite for this reason.
 
one of my videos of sharks in Bahamas.... there was a feed one afternoon but most of the footage was other dives where the sharks were just there:



and then there was my shark video from Palau this past Dec, we had sharks on every dive, no feeding, just tons and tons of sharks everywhere!



sharks are amazing creatures!
robin:D
 
awesome videos! thanks for sharing!
 

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