Anyone Ever See a Tiger Shark in Maui?

[sfbarry]

Hey all

As a new part time resident of Maui, I've been curious to know how common it is to see these amazing creatures underwater. Any experiences of divers and tigers off of maui ? If so what was the location ?

thanks so much!

 

[Charlie99]

Two times at Molokini I've sighted big guys out at the limit of visibility. In one case I'm pretty sure it was a tiger shark. In the other case, on the following morning the diveop B&B had a great white go cruising by the group. A Captain/DM off of another dive op, Mike Severns, has some superb video footage of a tiger munching on a manta that got tangled up in a mooring line on the Enennui side of Molokini crater. While chewing after ripping out a hunk of the dead manta, the tiger shark would cruise over to check out Andy, who was trying to keep a rock between him and the shark.

About 1/2 of all shark fatalities in Hawaii are on Maui.

The facts of life, though, is that you will see lots, and lots, and lots of whitetip reef sharks (who vye with nurse sharks for the title of pussycats of the ocean).

Molokini has a point where grey sharks commonly school. In the rare conditions that allow trips to Molokai, hammerhead sharks are often spotted. I don't know of any place where tigers are routinely sighted, but if you look at reports of shark attacks, the most common places are between Kamaole1 and Makena Landing in S. Maui, and in West Maui at Olowalu (MM14) and from Kaanapali north/northwest a few miles. Luckily, sharks seem to prefer swimmers and surfers that are on the surface over live scuba divers. One dawn in March I watched a dorsal fin cruise back and forth just offshore of Kam3 beach, at one time getting to about 50 yards distance from someone out for their morning swim. The tiger? didn't seem to have any interest in the swimmer, but instead repeatedly swam past a spot where I've seen both a cleaning station and turtles hangout spot.

If Shaka Doug doesn't jump in to this thread, he'd be a good guy to PM as he does shore dives in S. Maui almost every day.

 

[divebri]

doin reef's end drift, out in the blue like charlie, in and out of the vis.
Absolutely, completely stunning to watch that thing just cruise in an s-pattern, not getting closer or farther away, just in the channel, either looking for something or just hanging out.
I don't care how many dives you've got, when you see a tiger, bull, or white with a jaw bigger than the width of your shoulders, it gets the blood pumping.

That was one of the best dives I've ever done because of that tiger.

 

[Shaka Doug]

My tiger sighting was pretty freaky. The water was less than twenty feet deep with only about 15 feet of visibility. The weather was coming in and it was getting pretty churned up towards the end of the dive. I didn't expect anything unusual but it turned out to be one of my most memorable dives ever. I didn't even see it until it would have been too late, luckily, it wasn't interested in me or the people in my group. He came in quick, chasing after a big sea turtle. The turtle came flying up at me at top speed from near the bottom. I could tell we were on a collison course so I braced for impact. He crashed into my forearm at about thirty miles an hour then tried to hide behind me. I spun around, looked at him kind of confused by his behavior, not knowing why he was acting so strange and he just had this look in his eyes that said "Swim for your life Man!" Then he took off into the murk and left us there in bewilderment. I'd never had a turtle crash into me before. I was at first thinking it was attacking me but when it sped off, I knew something else was up.

I checked my arm because it actually hurt from the collision. As I was figuring everything out, checking on my three guests, I looked in the original direction I had been going and there it was, a big ass tiger shark. It was only ten to twelve feet away swimming off to my left. I saw the tail swish hard and it disappeared in an instant. I got a good look at it, it was uncomfortably close and I estimated it to be around 16 feet long. The tail was huge...easily four feet tall. Needless to say, I got the message out to the other three to get together and get moving. We made it back to shore in about 6 or 7 minutes but it seemed like much longer than that. The low viz made it pretty un-nerving. We had no idea where it went and fortunatley we didn't see it again.

This was at Five Caves; my Maui dive #613. I still remember it pretty clearly. It was summer time, late June 1999, I think. We did a two tank dive that day and saw several white tip sharks earlier at Makena Landing.

Back in the 1990's the fishermen sought revenge after a couple attacks on people and had a huge tiger slaughter here on Maui. They killed a lot of innocent sharks and it's pretty evident today that there's not that many around, however, I do know there's still a few left. A lady friend of mine shot a decent photo of one at Makena Landing a few months ago. It was about a 10-12 footer. I try not to worry about them, they don't seem to be too interested in SCUBA divers. Now snorkelers and surfers, that's a different story.

 

[sfbarry]

wow doug sounds crazy. Thanks for sharing such a great story!

 

[mjcoussens]

Yep, every time I go to the Maui Ocean Center

Matt

----------------
Now playing: Pico Vs. The Island Trees - 01-Getting Over
via FoxyTunes

 

[Bedouin]

Search the news. I remembered that there were about 4 attacks within 9months in 2007. All in the South area. All were swimmers. All minor injuries. People told me it was Tony The Tiger. I think the local news channel even shown video of Tony a couple of hours before the last attack in 2007. It was taped by a local diver.

 

[Maui Manini]

I've only seen whitetips near shore, so everything I know is second hand information. A female friend had a Tiger swim underneath her at Kahekili (old airport beach in Ka`anapali) in June, less than 200 feet from shore where the boats anchor. Lifeguards at D.T. Fleming have been seeing Tigers for several months. Maui lifeguards have a theory that the increase in turtles is attracting more Tigers to near shore beaches. And, many reports (probably a single incident) of visitors from snorkel boats jumping back into their boats after observing a Tiger chomp a green sea turtle at the north end of Olowalu reef this spring. On the other hand, Maui Ocean Center's Tiger shark is going to be released as soon as a smaller one is caught, but despite nightly fishing at Ma`alea, they haven't been able to catch one.