Welcome to ScubaBoard, an online scuba diving forum community where you can join over 100,000 divers from around the world discussing all things related to Scuba Diving. To gain full access to ScubaBoard you must register for a free account.
As a registered member you will be able to:
Participate in over 500 dive topic forums and browse from over 3,000,000 posts.
Communicate privately with other divers from around the world.
Post your own photos or view from 80,000 user submitted images.
Gain access to our free classifieds marketplace to buy, sell and trade gear, travel and services.
Use the calendar to organize your events and enroll in other members' events.
All this and much more is available to you absolutely free when you register for an account, so sign up today!
If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact the ScubaBoard Support Team.
Accidents and IncidentsThis forum is for the discussion of diving Accidents and Incidents. Please read the message at the top of the forum before posting threads or responses. Memorial threads can be posted in the Passings forum.
Please note: The last reply in this thread was more than 8 month(s) ago.
He goes on and on about the incident rate of injury not going up when the shark is deadlier. However, we don't know the incident rate since some incidents may be unreported (someone mentioned that Jim and crew have had nips on them in the past). Also, equipment incidents are not tallied into this. JASA's diving is what we call statistically insignificant compared to shark diving at large. The point being, nobody knows what JASA's real safety record is.
I appreciate the guy in this video trying to keep shark diving in general from being villified and sharks themselves from being villianized. However, ignoring recklessness and negligence will just encourage more incidents in the future.
"However, ignoring recklessness and negligence will just encourage more incidents in the future"
Perhaps this might get some dive operators that offer shark dives to emplore some more safety measures . Perhaps they may modify how they handle the bait or perhaps they might put somene down there with a neptune shark suit to ensure the bait box does not open and have chum fly over the paying customers .
It is a sad event that someone died but as i told members of my family that critisize the choice of shark diving . The option to dive or not to dive is always up to the individual . the trip was booked to dive with some more aggressive sharks . it was not like he was out to see some Queen angelfish or something . The real tragedy is that medical care was not available fast enough to prevent the loss of life .
I found this to be very interesting. Take a look at post #49 on this wetpixel thread.
Apparently that person doesn't understand the difference between intentionally attracting tiger sharks and one just randomly showing up. Most carribean shark feeds are only meant to attract Caribbean reef sharks although occasionally other sharks will cruise by.
Is there anybody here who doesn't see a difference between the old Blackbeard's Bull Run dive and what JASA was doing? Or the Unexso dive off Freeport? Or Stuart Cove's dive?
He goes on and on about the incident rate of injury not going up when the shark is deadlier. However, we don't know the incident rate since some incidents may be unreported (someone mentioned that Jim and crew have had nips on them in the past). Also, equipment incidents are not tallied into this. JASA's diving is what we call statistically insignificant compared to shark diving at large. The point being, nobody knows what JASA's real safety record is.
I appreciate the guy in this video trying to keep shark diving in general from being villified and sharks themselves from being villianized. However, ignoring recklessness and negligence will just encourage more incidents in the future.
Rob has his own agenda (which I support) but which has nothing to do with this incident. He just wants to prevent a "let's go kill the shark" mindset.
__________________
"Too often ... people enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought" - Leapfrog
Apparently that person doesn't understand the difference between intentionally attracting tiger sharks and one just randomly showing up. Most carribean shark feeds are only meant to attract Caribbean reef sharks although occasionally other sharks will cruise by.
Is there anybody here who doesn't see a difference between the old Blackbeard's Bull Run dive and what JASA was doing? Or the Unexso dive off Freeport? Or Stuart Cove's dive?
There is a difference but many customers want what JASA has to offer. In my opinion JASA is the premier shark dive. The news video that I quoted above indicated that the diver got too close to the bait and got bit on the calf. Same thing can happen with caribbean reef sharks at any other shark feeding/baiting dive. There is risk with everything we do and each have different levels of risk involved. It is up to the individual to choose the level and type of risk they are willing to accept. I don't need somebody else making those decisions for me.
Is there anybody here who doesn't see a difference between the old Blackbeard's Bull Run dive and what JASA was doing? Or the Unexso dive off Freeport? Or Stuart Cove's dive?
When you say "old" do you mean to say that Blackbeard's no longer does this or are you saying something else? I was on a trip in 2006 where we did a dive at Bull run and I'm going back on a trip with them next month.
When you say "old" do you mean to say that Blackbeard's no longer does this or are you saying something else? I was on a trip in 2006 where we did a dive at Bull run and I'm going back on a trip with them next month.
I didn't know if they still ran that dive since they started doing Freeport departures.
[/quote]I appreciate the guy in this video trying to keep shark diving in general from being villified and sharks themselves from being villianized. However, ignoring recklessness and negligence will just encourage more incidents in the future.[/quote]
The guy in the video is Rob Stewart, director of Sharkwater. He has been diving freely with sharks for over 10 years. He has been working directly with shark dive operators for 4. If there were questionable behaviors by those operators, he would be the first to come forward with that information. I spoke to him at length when he was here in Sept about those trips and am going on the tiger trip next year. It's not for everyone, and becoming complacent about these dives might have been a factor.
It's good to hear more about what happened and it seems that there were errors on the divers and operators part. Getting too close to the bait box...well that spells trouble and unfortunately, the diver paid the highest price. That is devastating regardless who is at fault. But the hysteria over the shark dive operators is a bit much. People die or are injured severely bull riding, or cliff jumping, bungie jumping, snake rangling, etc. The point is, no one forces anyone to get into the water. We volunteer for this. Heck I volunteer to TAG hammerheads for research!
Of all the diving I have done, the joy of sharing the water with such an incredible creature and to have that encounter with it, for me that is when I find my soul and I hope I never have that taken away from me.
Happy diving and Protecting my sharks!
Carolyn:sharks:
THE SHARK RESEARCH INSTITUTE