How Afraid are you of Sharks?

[RikRaeder]

Where do sharks rank on your fear factor? Are they a consideration where you dive? Should they be

Vote and compare:
How Afraid are you of Titan Triggers?

[Scubasteve1982]

I Love Sharks!

[Buoyant1]

The first time I ever saw one, I was swimming TOWARDS it and thinking...WHAT THE @#%$ am I doing?

But they don't bother me (unless they have a bib with a picture of a diver on it)

[BKP]

Nothing more thrilling than when they show up...

[drbill]

Too broad a question in my mind. There are species I would worry about and ones I wouldn't.

[AlaskaDiver]

I've always found then to be the ultimate creature to encounter whether it be in Papua new Guinea, Australia, Hawaii, Florida or the Caribbean. They are interesting to watch and see during any dive. I dove recently on the outer banks of NC about 26 miles off shore where people had not been on A wreck notorious for large Sand Tigers. We got down the wreck and three 9' sharks were completely hidden by the bait fish. We literally dropped down right next to them. A few seconds later after I was aiming my camera at one shark with a Remora dangling off of it, i realized that the other two harks were circling us. Humbling to see the massive tail. Really not much that can be done if a shark attacks at 110' depth other than slowly ascend.

[RikRaeder]

Too broad a question in my mind. There are species I would worry about and ones I wouldn't.

I know that Dr. Bill! We're talking about a phobia here. It isn't a reasonable, justified fear (in most cases), but rather a gut reaction. If I dive in Northern California where the whites live and feed, or in Saipan where the cute little white tip reef sharks grow up it's about the same.
Personally, ANY animal that is as big or bigger than me would make me nervous underwater (I'm downright scared of other divers!)

Last fall in Saipan, I was at 20m swimming out of The Grotto into an area of rock formations and pinnacles with about 30m of water under me. We were checking out a turtle near the surface, and when we resumed our forward progress, there was a white tip, just over one meter swimming towards us. It just came to check us out. It was graceful and beautiful. It passed within a couple of meters, and headed off to grab some lunch (I guess). I was awed, but didn't feel threatened at all. Had it been two meters, the pucker factor would have increased, I'm sure.
Last spring, in The Grotto, we were checking out a little bitty white tip, just under one meter. It got agitate from the DMs light, and started swimming around and making close passes on my fins. I just hovered there, upright, as I had been doing. It settled back in, but I did feel a bit nervous as it whirled around me. It did have teeth.

[DiveBZ]

I'll say this.

Not sure if this fact is true or not, but it sounds reasonable given the following experience.

I've been told several times that Bull Sharks have the highest concentration of testosterone in any animal on earth, including human men.

That being said, one time while fishing about 200 yards offshore for Cobia, we hooked into a massive bull shark. I had seen him swimming around the boat for several hours, he seemed to be interested in what we were doing. The whole time I saw him (several times at the surface) he was very very brown on top, almost like a sand or nurse shark, just normal colored. (Bug friggin' huge)

Eventually, he took a jig that was in the water (never seen a shark take a cobia rig - problem number 1).

Shortly thereafter, I returned to the back of the boat as the captain yelled "Fish On" and realized it was the Bull that had been near the boat. Instead of brown, he was now ENTIRELY a yellow and reddish color, his whole body. His entire demeanor had changed.

He went from "Hey, wonder what that boats doing" to "Please, please, bring me on that deck." His motion in the water ahd changed 100%, he was now stalking and wildly snapping his direction back and forth, like a human does when pacing around a room while angry. We finally brought it in, and got a picture before cutting it loose. (Yes, it still had the jig in its mouth - at least we didn't gaff it and throw it back like most sport fishers.)

Anyways - while diving near Ft. Walton beach last year, I was near a small reef-like area, I rose over the top of the thing to keep on going and about 10 feet in front of me was another Bull Shark. No big deal - seen them before - but this one saw me (or something in the general direction that I was in) and turned that same yellow/reddish color all over and made a full thrust charge towards the reef deal. I stayed as calm as I could, trying to swim to the side, and he veered off to the left of me and shot into open water. It felt like he was right beside me, but it was probably realistically 15-20 feet.

The one I saw underwater was not nearly as large as the one I had caught, but I knew what the color change meant and I really could have sworn that I was a goner. Again - it was probably not as life threatening as it seemed in my mind, but nonetheless, it was friggin' scary. I've been told the Bull Sharks here can get territorial, which I'm guessing is what happened?

Since then I've seen several sharks and while they are scary to some extent, I've never had another get within 50 feet of me.

They scare the piss out of me, but they are so cool.

[RoatanMan]

Only the hungry ones. The hungry small ones.

[Scubadoo72]

My bad...thought this was about eating shark...

*heads back to bar*