Mandatory Dive protection for Shark dives.

[Water Bug]

Anyone making the choice to dive with sharks should be aware of the risks and proceed as such. If an operator provides protective equipment they should have choice.
IMO - There are many other areas of scuba regulations for governing bodies to focus on rather than invest time, money, and effort into avoiding rare occurances.

 

[matts1w]

I have seen a few people attacked and chomped on by trigger fishes. Maybe we better start dealing with that before someone gets really hurt.

 

[tridacna]

Some things worth doing have some risk to them. You can't eliminate risk.

Can't eliminate risk? Agreed...but you can certainly minimize risk.

All this libertarian BS speech of free choice.

The shortest time unit in the USA is the time taken between a "libertarian" claiming the right to do anything and the call to the lawyer after they're injured in an accident. Then it's never their own fault. Let the blame game begin. I see it all day long. Amazing how that works! :mouse04:

 

[seaducer]

Can't eliminate risk? Agreed...but you can certainly minimize risk.

All this libertarian BS speech of free choice.

The shortest time unit in the USA is the time taken between a "libertarian" claiming the right to do anything and the call to the lawyer after they're injured in an accident. Then it's never their own fault. Let the blame game begin. I see it all day long. Amazing how that works! :mouse04:

I am not a libertarian by any means. Personally I believe the US has gotten to big to not be regulated.

However, life is risky, and forcing people to purchase expensive suits to stop the one in 20,000 incident, or whatever the numbers work out to be is just plain silly. I would be willing to be that more divers would have problems with those suits than the sharks they are supposed to be protected from. Bouyancy, claustrophobia, ...

Hell, I bet they cause more shark related injuries too! People who can't handle the extra weight skull their arms, entice a shark to bite their forearm and then the fish shakes it's head, arm pops out if its socket or the bones are crushes, or...

These suits do very little to actually protect anyone from shark bite. The simple bite and release is all they are good for. A real bite, crushing force, head shaking, not of those suits will help...

 

[matts1w]

Aggressive Trigger Fish and Sergent Majors

Last week I was diving at the Pompano Drop off with a friend. All was well until we were near a snorkel boat which resembled a large platform. Believe it or not, they had a chum bag hanging under the boat to attract fish to their snorkelers and glass bottom boat windows- predator fish- like trigger fish even!!! Man was it ever scary- especially for the unsuspecting nearby divers. The fish were being very aggressive darting and charging, and it concerned others…even those not in the water. A diver could get spooked and make a fast ascent, etc…. One might end up with stitches from a nasty triggerfish bite or lung overexpansion. Some divers were just wearing skins, shorties or (gasp) a bathing suit and rash guard. They should be forced to wear AT LEAST a 5 mil to stop a bite. Dont even get me started with all the fire coral down there.

What can PADI and the owner of the dive boat do to keep me safe? There ought to be a law before someone gets really, really hurt by a five pound trigger fish. Have you seen their beaks!!!!????

Oh yeah- the week before in the Keys there were Man-O-War everywhere. They had the nerve to float over our dive site and we had to be really careful. What if we got stung? Who's fault would that be?

If diving cant be perfectly safe then no one should do it, darn it.

 

[gonetobaja]

I am not a libertarian by any means. Personally I believe the US has gotten to big to not be regulated.

However, life is risky, and forcing people to purchase expensive suits to stop the one in 20,000 incident, or whatever the numbers work out to be is just plain silly. I would be willing to be that more divers would have problems with those suits than the sharks they are supposed to be protected from. Bouyancy, claustrophobia, ...

Hell, I bet they cause more shark related injuries too! People who can't handle the extra weight skull their arms, entice a shark to bite their forearm and then the fish shakes it's head, arm pops out if its socket or the bones are crushes, or...

These suits do very little to actually protect anyone from shark bite. The simple bite and release is all they are good for. A real bite, crushing force, head shaking, not of those suits will help...

I own one of these suits, and use it on predator encounters. I would like to address your speculation on the problems related to diving with these suits. First off, the bouyancy is not an issue. The suit weights 18 lbs and is spread over your body uniformly. It has ease of movement and is not restrictive. There is no reason a person would feel anymore claustrophobic in a Neptunic Shark suit than they would in an ordinary 3 mill wetsuit. I have been in many 7mill dive suits much more bulky and restrictive than my Neptunic suit. I have found in my humble experience that most divers in search of diving with baited in predators, though not fully advanced and equipped and in need of a guide, are far beyond issues of a new diver such as bouyancy and gear claustrophobia. In short, a Neptunic Shark suit is designed for a true advanced diver that knows and understands all of the risks involved and chooses to remove the risk where available by wearing already proven saftey measures. It allows a diver to be in close proximity to apex predators while keeping a measure of saftey for accidental bites caused by this type of interaction.

As far as your end statement where you state of the effectiveness of the Neptunic Shark suit, I can personaly attest to it saving my ass a couple of times. but dont take my word for it. this link is to the Neptunic website. On the page are 4 videos that demonstrate the suit in use. You can then see just how long the research and perfecting of these suits has been going on. This company makes suits to accomodate any threat level of predator. They make an all titanium version of the stainless mesh that is much stronger and lighter. They have other types of panel armor that can distribute a bite over a large area of the body. They have soft armor for commercial divers that have to get a job done. They have boots for fishermen for stingray hits, etc.

Neptunic Sharksuits | The Creators of the Sharksuit Technology

And remember that the cost of the suits is the responsibility of the operator. Believe me they make enough money to buy them. It would suck for the egos of the people whos identitys depend on them being able to brag about how they swam with sharks because they would be wearing protection. I guess its not cool anymore if you have to protect yourself when visiting the home of one of natures most perfect predators. Alot of rules suck.

Having shark diving shut down because someone else gets bit would also suck. Thats why I started this thread. I propose self regulation through moral responsibility. Operations making money off of creating these risky situations should be responsible for following a protocol that protects its customers from accidental bites, and its resource (the sharks) in the process.

And like I have stated before, If you are truly and advanced diver ready to dive in with baited sharks and no protection, than you dont need PAY for a shark trip. There will never be a law that stops people from doing such a thing, unless you count the laws of nature.

 

[matts1w]

Hmmmmmmm... there is one pic on their (Friends of yours?) site that made looking things over worth it.

 

[seaducer]

18 pounds huh? Holy crap! I spent the past week divng in Bonaire, a tropical location with water temps similar to the Bahamas. In a shorty, with my BP/W, I use 4 pounds of lead. I would be a tad over weighted.

And while many people have been diving for 10 or more years, many people doing these dives are newbies.

And no offense, but I will take Valerie Taylor's word that when blue sharks grabbed her arm and shook it almost ripped her arm right out of it's socket. I would hate to see what would happen with a shark the size of a reef, bull, or heaven forbid a big tiger. BTW they do nothing with white sharks, they'll cut you in half if they want regardless of the material the links are made of.

I am sure they are great suits that do protect people from bites. However avoiding bites is not that hard, as evidenced by the low numbers of attacks on divers over the years. 4k+ for the odd incident is a bit much.

Personally, and again no offense, I prefer to use my brain and knowledge of sharks to keep me safe when sharing water with them. If I feel like I need a cage or suit to keep me safe I am getting out of the water because I have done something wrong...

 

[worlddiver]

Being a marine environmentist, feeding of the Sharks or feeding any marine life including Dolphins is just plan wrong. Studies all over the world have shown that bring sharks to a specific area for human enjoyment has radical reduced the fish population for up to 2 miles. Years of research has also shown feeding dead fish to Dolphins, Sharks, Stingrays, Grouper, Turtles, Angle fish & etc. has altered reproduction and shorten their life span by 50 percent.

The real adventure is to experince marine life in it's natural state.

Let's be responsible and not impact the world any more than what it is.