1997 Deep Dive/Shark Attack.

[Mark IV]

Sure they will. If you’re maintaining eye contact and have a decent sized camera or scooter that’s very effective at pushing a shark away.

Not always but I’d say mostly. Sharks can’t afford to be hurt.

If a shark bolts out of nowhere and you don’t see it then yeah nothing likely to protect you but as a diver I’d put the risk of that pretty low.

Wrong. If a decent-sized bull, tiger, hammerhead, etc. is hell bent on attacking a person on the water, there is nothing they can do about it. ZERO!
Sure, a camera or scooter (or lawn chair, golf club, garbage can lid, bicycle wheel, vacuum cleaner, etc), can, in a pinch, be used to push a casually curious shark away. But if the shark commits to attacking........the shark wins. Period. It won;t matter what's in your hands. (you might get lucky with something like a bang-stick, but we're not talking about what are essentially firearms, we're talking about bulky objects.)
We don't have the dexterity or reflexes, especially in the water, to counter the speed and agility of a shark. Simple fact.
And sharks are amazingly unconcerned with being hurt. I'm sure we've all seen the videos of them viciously squirming into a jagged hole in a reef, just to drag a fish or eel out.They do it all the time, they don't care.
When i was a kid, I read of old whaling ships catching sharks that were feeding on the whales that were tied to the side of the ships. The whalers would cut the stomachs out of the sharks and toss them back in the water.....and they'd go right back to munching on the dead whales!! (until they died, of course). The point is, bopping a frenzied shark on the nose with your fist, or an Igloo cooler, isn't going to deter a committed shark, one tiny bit. ( and unfortunately, nor is giving them some stern eye contact ).

 

[HalcyonDaze]

I’ve dived with a lot of Oceanic White Tips. If you want to play with them you stick to your depth. I absolutely adore them but they certainly like to check out things ascending and descending.

Their behaviour is normally very predictable and they are great fun to dive with but sometimes their behaviour changes dramatically (Twitchy, rapid change of direction and depth and pectoral fins lowered) at which point it’s usually time to consider getting out of the water.

My friend has some footage on YouTube of an Oceanic bossing a Tiger way bigger than it. They’re pretty competitive animals. Not that’s it’s allowed in Egypt but spear fishing with Oceanics around would probably be a very bad idea.

The one OW I saw was while snorkeling in blue water (bottom was 10,000 ft down between Tahiti and Moorea). We were specifically told not to dive down on them ... I forget if this was before or after someone tried it. For me that's worked on other sharks, but an OW's reaction is "bring it."

Wrong. If a decent-sized bull, tiger, hammerhead, etc. is hell bent on attacking a person on the water, there is nothing they can do about it. Sure, a camera or scooter (or lawn chair, golf club, garbage can lid, bicycle wheel, vacuum cleaner, etc), can, in a pinch, be used to push a casually curious shark away. But if the shark commits to attacking........the shark wins. Period.
And sharks are amazingly unconcerned with being hurt. I'm sure we've all seen the videos of them viciously squirming into a jagged hole in a reef, just to drag a fish or eel out.
When i was a kid, I read of old whaling ships catching sharks that were feeding on the whales that were tied to the side of the ships. The whalers would cut the stomachs out of the sharks and toss them back in the water.....and they'd go right back to munching on the dead whales!! (until they died, of course). The point is, bopping a frenzied shark on the nose with your fist, or an Igloo cooler, isn't going to deter a committed shark, one tiny bit. ( and unfortunately, nor is giving them some stern eye contact ).

I get the feeling this commentary is more literature and Shark Week than firsthand experience.

 

[InTheDrink]

Wrong. If a decent-sized bull, tiger, hammerhead, etc. is hell bent on attacking a person on the water, there is nothing they can do about it. Sure, a camera or scooter (or lawn chair, golf club, garbage can lid, bicycle wheel, vacuum cleaner, etc), can, in a pinch, be used to push a casually curious shark away. But if the shark commits to attacking........the shark wins. Period.
And sharks are amazingly unconcerned with being hurt. I'm sure we've all seen the videos of them viciously squirming into a jagged hole in a reef, just to drag a fish or eel out.
When i was a kid, I read of old whaling ships catching sharks that were feeding on the whales that were tied to the side of the ships. The whalers would cut the stomachs out of the sharks and toss them back in the water.....and they'd go right back to munching on the dead whales!! (until they died, of course). The point is, bopping a frenzied shark on the nose with your fist, or an Igloo cooler, isn't going to deter a committed shark, one tiny bit. ( and unfortunately, nor is giving them some stern eye contact ).

Guess our views differ slightly. My experience certainly does. A blast on the ampoules de Lorenzini will deter a Longimanus temporarily.

And I think your analogies don’t really stack up. I’ve seen reef sharks reduce parts of rock to rubble in Cocos over a small fish. But they’re not scared of rock.

 

[Mark IV]

I get the feeling this commentary is more literature and Shark Week than firsthand experience.

Did I claim to have first-hand experience being attacked by sharks? Do you have first hand experience being attacked by sharks ? You have anything factual to dispute what I said?
I'll stick with my statements, that a person in the water is at an overwhelming disadvantage to an attacking shark, a disadvantage that isn't even close to being negated by the mere possession of a bulky object. Are you actually disputing this?

 

[InTheDrink]

Did I claim to have first-hand experience being attacked by sharks? Do you have first hand experience being attacked by sharks ? You have anything factual to dispute what I said?
I'll stick with my statements, that a person in the water is at an overwhelming disadvantage to an attacking shark, a disadvantage that isn't even close to being negated by the mere possession of a bulky object. Are you actually disputing this?

Define attack? I’ve been bumped by big sharks plenty of times. Would I consider it an attack? No. But they’re thinking about it. Which is why it’s eyes on.

And 18 months ago I was at a site where a guy lost his calf was lucky to survive. 3 other divers got attacked same month thankfully less serious.

All we preventable with awareness and a nice dome camera to push them away if necessary.

In the footage that I saw of several of these attacks the thing that stood out was lack of awareness by the diver and not maintaining eye contact.

So yeah I know a little from personal experience about shark attacks.

p.s. yes. I’m absolutely disputing what you’ve said. It’s just not true in the vast majority of cases that I’ve witnessed, seen footage of with guides that were in the water at the same time.

Im telling you straight. Maintaining buoyancy, eye contact and having some buffer are exceptionally effective when a shark starts getting to confident.

 

[HalcyonDaze]

Back on the more pertinent topic to the thread, this is a good resource on prior deep air dive attempts and the factors involved.

Deep Diving

It would appear oxtox has not been much of a factor given the short bottom times, although narcosis is a major concern. The details of Bret Gilliam's 452-ft record dive in 1990 are provided; what surprised me is that he only used a single 100 cu ft cylinder. However, he made his target depth in under 5 minutes, spent 1:40 there, and started up 6 minutes and 20 seconds into the dive. Initial ascent rate was 100 ft/minute, slowing to 60 ft/minute above 100 ft, and then doing a first deco stop at 50 ft. Going by that, he was at the deco stop 10 minutes after splashing and then spent an hour and 16 minutes decompressing in the water before going on oxygen onboard the support vessel.

There are also accounts of attempts that did not end successfully. Hope Root's early attempt in 1951 and a double fatality in 1971 are two of the more chilling ones to read.

 

[Dan]

- There's 3 kinds of people: those who get numbers and those who don't.

What's the third kind of people?

 

[Dan]

I’ve dived with a lot of Oceanic White Tips. If you want to play with them you stick to your depth. I absolutely adore them but they certainly like to check out things ascending and descending.

Their behaviour is normally very predictable and they are great fun to dive with but sometimes their behaviour changes dramatically (Twitchy, rapid change of direction and depth and pectoral fins lowered) at which point it’s usually time to consider getting out of the water.

My friend has some footage on YouTube of an Oceanic bossing a Tiger way bigger than it. They’re pretty competitive animals. Not that’s it’s allowed in Egypt but spear fishing with Oceanics around would probably be a very bad idea.

Here's my experience with OWT. They were just hanging to look for handout?

 

[InTheDrink]

Here's my experience with OWT. They were just hanging to look for handout?

That’s a very good video of how to interact with them.

You can also see that the sharks are totally relaxed, pectoral fins spread out wide and no darting movements or changes in depth and direction. This is the way they normally behave particularly if divers don’t act like idiots.

I’ll see if I can dig up the video of the attack at brothers a 18 months ago and you can see the change in behaviour. Too many boats. Too many divers. I hopped out of the water after 20 mins because a single juvenile kept coming at me with its behaviour all wrong. I normally stay with them for as long as possible but that month their behaviour was all over the place and you had to gauge carefully.

Anyhow, still off the topic of deep air but I guess the shark aspect still keeps it vaguely on point.

And to that effect, the same message comes through - don’t do crazy deep air dives and if there are big sharks around don’t do crazy **** and just let them know your there. They don’t want to get hurt either.

 

[InTheDrink]

So this particular video doesn’t really do the event justice. But what happened was a diver got too nervous and started spinning out making the shark more agitated.

Unfortunately another diver doing a sidemount course wasn’t paying attention to the shark behaviour and got attacked.

He was both lucky and unlucky. The crew got him out of dodge immediately and put pressure on the bleeding and there were two doctors available which saved his life and his leg.