Interesting Reef Shark Behaviour

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menemsha43

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I just returned from the Turks & Caicos islands and was pleasantly surprised to see Caribbean reef sharks on nearly every dive. On my first night dive, we had several sharks appearing throughout the dive. Every several minutes one or two would pass in the periphery of our lights, maybe 20 or 30 feet out.

At the end of the dive as we were ascending, one of the sharks (I did not see this happen but one of my buddies did) hit a large jack and basically bit it in half. There was a bit of a scrum afterwards and it accelerated the activity around us. Just after that, a smaller shark, maybe 4-5' approached me as I was about 20' down - we were about to do a safety stop. I saw him coming at me from about 10 or 15' - not a lot of distance between us. Initially, I was not excitable at all since my last trip was to Cocos where the dozens and dozens of white tips get close and scrum for fish on every night dive. But it was very clear that this particular shark was heading directly at me.

As he closed the distance I stayed calm and kept waiting for him to turn. He didn't. As he came within 2-3', I had readied my light to give him a good shot on the nose - and then he turned at the very last moment. I was with 3 other divers and the one who saw the jack get eaten saw the entire thing - the other two (including the divemaster) did not see it. When I explained it to the divemaster, he said the shark was simply tracking my light and came in for a closer inspection. As the shark closed the distance, it didn't appear to me to be threatening and I do think it was simply investigating. It did however give me one heck of an adrenalin rush and lots of good laughs with my diving partners.
 
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