Update on my trip. I wish I had the energy to write a trip report. One of these days...
Well the boat was fantastic. The crew were the best I've had the pleasure of divin with and the diving was the most fun I've had.
We saw longimanus on most dives, and hammerheads/threshers/grey reef on others. However, for pure thrill factor, longimanus wins hands down. The experience was definitely made more exhilerating/scary because of the attack on the French diver two weeks previous. There were other accidents too which hadn't made the news, altho all on swimmers/divers from what I heard.
Diving with longimanus was just wonderful. They come in way close. I've attached a link to some photos at the bottom - most are mine, some are some are my buddy's and some are a couple of other divers. My camera had an off-day on a lot of the dives which was more than annoying - particularly on the dive where I'd spent ten minutes videoing the reef and then had no memory left to capture a longimanus repeatedly bumping my buudy's fins (force fins btw - OWTs just LOVE them
).
On two of the dives I felt quite scared. Mainly this was when I came upon a longimanus unprepared. On one of these occasions I unintentionally dropped from 5m to 31m in no time as I tried to stay underneath the shark (as they don't attack from above). It seemed like a good plan but I think a better one is just standing your ground. I did this mostly but on a couple of occasions my reactions were less than perfect.
The crew, like I said, were amazing. Most of our dives were lovely and long with lots of time to play with the longimanus. Current was fine to moderate, viz was excellent to pretty good.
One thing that raised slight concern was that the two guides repeatedly seemed concerned about the changing behaviour of longimanus. That they were growing more confident and more aggressive. The main guide had been diving there for years but on one dive she felt compelled to exit quickly as three longimanus bumped her fins. It did seem they got more twitchy as the day wore on.
In any event, it was the most amazing trip. I intend to make it an annual event.
My only negtive point was the quality of the tank O-rings - these blew with an annoying frequency: we must have had 30 or 40 blown O-rings on deck or on the zodiac over the week. That seems kinda high to me.
If anyone is going there feel free to drop me a line. It was such a memorable trip if there are any pointers I could provide, I'd love to do so.
The only other shame was not finding 300bar and Samaka at port in the last night. Next year, next year...
Here's the link:
Flickr: john_clynes' Photostream
Cheers,
J
