Shark diving in Austrailia

[MattyoUK]

Hey guys, I'm currently backpacking in Australia and want to do as much diving as possible. I've always had a fascination with Sharks, and think they're beautiful animals. When I was last in Australia I looked into cage diving and was surprised to be discouraged from doing it by the travel agent! As he said he didn't think it was good for the sharks to be baited around humans, therefore helping them to associate people with food which he believes leads to more shark attacks. This made sense to me so I never perused it after that. I'm now trying to find dive companies that will lead dives out of a cage in areas known to have Great Whites or Tigers, does anybody know of any? I got talking to an Aussie who lived in Carnarvon ant he said he regularly saw Tiger Sharks on his dives there so I will be heading there at some point. I'm struggling to find places on google that aren't cage diving, so I'm hoping some people here will know.
Thanks.

 

[Wingy]

Do a few dives at Rottnest Island before you head up to Carnarvon.

 

[clownfishsydney]

Only great white dives are in Australia. I do not know of any running tiger shark dives here. For grey nurse sharks there are many places in New South Wales (not cages).

 

[MattyoUK]

So there are places that will take me diving with GWS out of a cage then? Do you know any areas that are good for it? Yeah southwest rocks is definitely on my to do list for the Nurse Sharks. My first ever dive was at Julian Rocks in Byron where I really hoped to see them but I wasn't lucky enough. Thanks Wingy ill look into it : )

 

[drrich2]

Not familiar with Australian shark diving, so speaking generally here. Sharks can detect us long before we detect them, and we're very alien looking & sounding (e.g.: the bubbles) to them. If no one uses bait of any kind, what are your odds of seeing a great white or a tiger shark, and how close/long is this sighting likely to be? How many dives over what period of time can you dedicate to this endeavor?

Richard.

 

[Wingy]

Sorry Matty I should have elaborated. Rottnest is a nice day dive from Perth where the dive shops go and there are often sharks in shark cave...and sometimes...whites and tigers frequent the area. More Whites frequent the southern parts of WA - Augusta, Esperance, Albany type regions than around perth as the water is cooler. There are no organised shark dives and ive only ever seen one GW Juvenile here - off mandurah. As we have had some fatalities you may find beaches closed at times if the satellite tagging system gets too many hits. I agree with GW Cage diving being a possible contributing factor in ''familiarity'' with divers. Google Coffin Bay SA shark attack and also Greg Pickering - a west Aussie Abalone diver who has been head first inside a large GW and lived to tell the tale of his second shark bite.

We have big GWs...have a look at the research Dave Riggs is doing down south particularly the Bremer Bay aggregation. When a tagged 3m white was eaten by something you know theres a hot spot down there - Orcas to Sperm Whales with GWS during the summer months. Unfortunately you cannot dive with them and the spot is a long way off shore but heres some info you may find interesting - What's feeding the deadly wildlife at Bremer Canyon? - ABC Esperance - Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Drrich - impossible to estimate the odds. With a coastline of 12,889 km and including islands 20,781 km we are a big state. The one time I saw one was probably 6 years into diving when I went out with friends who had just gotten certified in Thailand - I popped over the side to check the viz as this would be there first dive not in a class environment - and spotted it instantly. So for me, one in ten years - for my friend, she wouldve seen a GWS her first dive at home..probably not ideal. When I surfaced they had spotted the fin and certainly did not want to go in after that. I dont dive a lot here so my strike rate would be maybe 1 in 100, hers wouldve been 100% sightings per dive. I know people who have dived here twice a week for 30 years and never seen one.

They come too close unfortunately. When a 5m shark takes a test bite the outcome is almost always unfavourable. Given the speed they approach at id hazard a guess even if you could get organised to spray bubbles around you would already have made a new very up close and personal friend.

http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/wes...-first-interview/story-fnhocxo3-1226761260599

 

[Wingy]

Double post sorry

 

[MattyoUK]

That's disappointing, after seeing more and more videos online of divers out of the cages with GWs, I thought there might be some organised trips happening. I'm obviously aware of the risks but honestly I thought almost all the shark attacks were on surfers and swimmers being mistaken for prey.
I've also made the same mistake once while assisting on an open water course. Making my frantically interrupt the instructor as he was demonstrating a mask clear, to show the students a turtle that as swimming right over our heads! When it was actually a kid o a rubber dingy.... *face hand.
Although I have no experience diving with larger sharks, (I've been lucky to have dived with a thresher and a couple white tips) my thinking is that it would be very hard for a shark to mistake a calm relaxed diver with a steel tank on their back blowing out heaps of bubbles as prey. I think the most dangerous time would be at the surface entering and exiting the water. It does seem like there has been more attacks on divers than I thought though.
To see a GWS is a deal of mine though and its good to hear about some areas where they ae frequently sighted, so thanks.

 

[Wingy]

South Aus is where you will get what you are wanting - well as close to it as is possible. You are correct in your thinking that those first 5m are the most dangerous. There have been fatals on divers doing their safety stops. Diving on an overcast day in winter when the water temp drops to around 18 usually coincides roughly with sealions at Carnac in the water and the Salmon run so it is not a good idea. This year we had a great salmon run but we also had 2 fatals in 6 days and beaches are being closed regularly at the moment.

Im not ashamed to say I find sitting at 5m here during a safety stop if the viz is typically perth poor just a little eerie sometimes.

Time goes by so slowly...... enjoy your sharks - I love them too but I dont wanna love them from the inside as well - for the record the one I saw did nothing....just behaved like any other shark swimming along going to I dunno a shark convention or something. Paid me no attention at all.

 

[drrich2]

I'm not familiar with offerings in your area. Perhaps it would be helpful to speak of more distant offerings, and perhaps others can say what's similar or available in your area?

From a U.S.-based perspective, if I wanted to dive with tiger sharks, I'd have 2 main options. Either go to southeast Florida, around the city of Jupiter, and head out with Emerald Dive Charters and watch a guy hand feed sharks (time of year's a big factor on species here), or else do probably a live-aboard trip to an area off Grand Bahama Island called Tiger Beach, where a 'scent triangle' or other means of baiting them in would be used. Cageless is offered.

For great white diving, it's either Guadalupe Island off the Pacific Coast of Mexico, or South Africa; those I hear mentioned most, and generally cage diving. It's my understanding GWS diving without a cage happens, but is more a minority activity.

Aside from GSWs being a tad bigger and a lot scarier looking, I'm not sure what cageless tiger diving seems so much more accepted...until I take close look at one of those massive open-mawed GWS close-ups, and think 'Noooooo.....'

Just for post completeness, if you like big, potentially dangerous sharks, there is the oceanic white-tip shark diving off Cat Island in the Bahamas.

Putting aside reef sharks drawn by feeding/chumming, people out of the U.S. have a couple of good options for 'medium' shark encounters in numbers; wreck diving with sand tiger sharks out of North Carolina, and the lemon shark migration/aggregation off southeast Florida. Would a bunch of 8 - 10 foot sharks be of interest? There's some place in Mexico where you can dive with bull sharks; people seem to regard them as much more potentially dangerous than sand tigers or lemons.

The above assumes you don't spear fish. You take that up, your shark encounter 'options' may change considerably, and someone else can talk about that.

Those of your familiar with Australia, are there local regional offerings analogous to the above? Is anyone aware of anywhere in the world where people routinely dive with a good probability of seeing tiger or GWS without using any form of baiting? Reliable enough you'd book a trip there just to see them?

Richard.

P.S.: You sure you don't want to get some more experience with medium sharks before you jump in with something 14 feet plus? Just a suggestion...