Divers Riding Whale Shark

[yle]

You guys are the only ones acting immature, roasting people for having a peaceful interaction with marine life while drinking from your single use water bottle

I'm curious about your obsession with single use water bottles. You keep coming back to that...

 

[yle]

And still not one person has been able to provide a SINGLE shred of evidence that interacting with whale sharks causes them ANY harm whatsoever, physically or mentally

And you have no evidence that it does not cause harm. But you're still willing to assume that it does.

What it comes down to is this: whether or not it causes harm (because we don't know, right?)...

WHY DO IT?

Tell us about your motivation for "interacting" with marine life? I think it's pretty obvious from all the responses you've elicited that there are a lot of people here who would like to understand what motivates you to touch animals and defend others that do the same.

 

[EastEndDiver]

I think if you want to ride a shark while holding it's dorsal fin you should practice on Tiger sharks before working up to a Whale shark

 

[Sam Miller III]

It is often said "There is nothing worse than a reformed drunk...." In our modern generation of "divers" it may be said "There is nothing worse than a reformed spearfisherman." I am not certain if I am reformed or not - I still have 5 trusty Spear guns leaning against my desk at the ready in case a fish swims 600 feet up a California hill and begs to be stuck...

One thing I am very positive about is conservation of the marine life that remains in the wild. I have had a very long ancillary career in recreational and professional diving. I have experienced the slow, some times rapid decline of our marine life, both on the inshore reefs and in blue water environment.

The attitude of many of you towards marine life defies pure logic- destroy what provides pleasure.

Some of you will be honored with a lot of breaths and heart beats and will possibly live to be 70-80 - or even 90. Then you cam take your grand children and great grandchildren to an aquarium to see the last sea urchin remining in the world-

I am reattaching post #108 -- forget the preamble verbiage read the bold print . We will all agree Hans Hass was a very brave diver to swim with a Whale shark.- 70 plus years ago..

No need to prove how brave you are by duplicating Dr.Hass's ride -- let them alone !

It is sunny California morning headed to beach to hang with long boarders

'SDM




"I have a friend who teaches a Library Science Research course at Cal Poly University San Luis Obispo in California.
One of his first assignments is for the students to visit the library and research a particular subject. The majority ignore the instructions and go directly to Google which contains incomplete and incorrect information.

They submit their Google based research and all receive a fail for not following instruction and submitting incorrect information.

The course of least resistance in researching is a few taps on the key board to take the researcher to Google.

A long time ago in 1948 - 70 years ago- before most of you were born and were certainly were not divers

The first documented person - diver - swimming with a whale shark was the late great Hans Hass.
In his 1948 B& W movie "Under the Red Sea" he is shown with an O2 rebreather swimming along the back of a whale shark terminating by hesitating momentarily and looking to the large eye of the shark. At that time approaching a giant of the sea was unchartered territory-- would the diver be swallowed or bit or harmed in some unknown way

It was a unexpected thrill for the movie audiences then and if the movie was currently available would still be a supper thrill.

A B&W picture of the same event was also included in one of his books, ether
Men and Sharks published in 1949 and Manta in 1952

I personally have never seen a whale shark and if I did I would swim a respectable distance away to respect their territory and hopefully they would respect mine. In the beginning divers were very few in number and marine life flourished , now divers are plentiful and we should all do our part individually and collectively to protect what remains of out marine life for all to enjoy

@boulderjohn often quotes from recently published books... a list of the late great Hans Hass books
which were published in America-- perhaps will expand his and the readers horizons a wee bit
:
Men and Sharks 1949
Manta- 1952
Diving to Adventure 1952
We come from the Sea 1959
Challenging the deep 1971
Men beneath the sea 1971

(all of the books have been personally escribed to me by Dr Hass and his diving partner and wife Lotte)

For those of you who are fluent in German may I suggest
Hans Hass:
Ein Leben Lang auf Expedition (a life of expeditions )
ein portrat
By Dr. Michael Jung
1994, Stuttgart
336 pages, hard cover with dust jacket , Illustrated
(personally inscribed by Drs. Hass & Jung - It paid to be a bibliophile )

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For you budding UW photographers with your Go Pros
"Fotojagd am Meeresgrund "
by Hans Hass
1942 (recall history - WW11 was on and German was being bombed day and night )
223 pages hard cover (no dust jacket)
Illustrated with B&W and COLOR UW photographs
(Extremely rare book)

Ich Tauchiet in den 7 meeren
(I dive in the 7 seas)
Dr. Hans Hass
1957 Leipzig
164 pages - hard cover no dust jacket
Illustrated with B&W and color UW photographs

Enough for one California morning- the sun is shining brightly it is time for a walk on the beach with little dog Lucky

Sam Miller, 111"

 

[Soloist]

I throughly enjoy spearfishing, pole spearing lionfish and catching lobsters, so I fail to see the comparison. Earlier in the thread the four morons riding the shark in the attached video were considered to be no different than cleaner fish. I have yet to see cleaner fish with fingernails, carrying a camera, wearing stiff dive fins, unable to swim, weigh 200 pounds, wearing abrasive wetsuit materials or have dive consoles, SMB’s, inflators, octos and God knows what else hanging off of them.

 

[caruso]

. Earlier in the thread the four morons riding the shark in the attached video were considered to be no different than cleaner fish. I have yet to see cleaner fish with fingernails.

You think the divers are scratching the whale shark with their fingernails?

I never thought of that. Could be an issue especially if they nick an artery

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

I think someone posted a few pages ago that no one is convincing the other.

A friend of mine told me once “if you argue with a moron, there are two morons arguing.”

 

[IncreaseMyT]

Yes you can’t have people calling others defaming and deragotory names. But if people want to “interact” with each other and back up statements with pertinent information, that’s great.

But it’s obvious my opinion doesn’t matter, only the other opinion matters. Because the other opinion still hasn’t posted a single shred of evidence that interacting with whale sharks is bad, yet people keep parroting the information.

Nothing like patting yourself on the back I guess, some people just don’t wanna hear the truth

The boards are a double edged sword, you can learn a lot of information fast, but you can also learn the wrong information fast. Once a fallacy starts circling, you can prove it wrong 100 times, yet people will still continue to parrot the unsubstantiated information.

 

[Jack Hammer]

PADI has posted their feelings on the issue.

Riding a Whale Shark? Outrageous and Unacceptable!

 

[flyboy08]

I think someone posted a few pages ago that no one is convincing the other.

A friend of mine told me once “if you argue with a moron, there are two morons arguing.”

And if you do it on the internet, your a moron squared...why would one have to post evidence that sticking a sharp object in ones eye will hurt?