Wanting To Go Shark Diving

[NoobDiver1]

Hi all,

I am going to complete my PADI in May and will look to travel to the Caribbean in the Summer to do some cage-free shark diving. My goals are to keep expenses to a minimum (so I am not interested in charters) and to dive with a variety of sharks. I thought tiger sharks would be amazing to see, but from what I can tell, only charters go out there now. Does anyone know anything different? My thought has been to go to Grand Bahama and hopefully if there is a tiger dive that is a single day event, I would do that as well as maybe a dolphin dive.

Alternatively, does anyone know know another place in the Caribbean that has multi-species shark dives within close range? To put it this way: I am okay with two separate dives, but I am trying to keep costs low, and I am not interested in taking a bus 3+ hours to another side of an island for another dive.

 

[docmartin]

Your best bet for seeing multiple shark species close by and for cheap is Jupiter, FL but I don't recommend it for a newly certified diver (current, relatively deep).
In the Bahamas I believe I have seen day trips to Tiger Beach. Could have been with Stuart Cove but I am not sure.

 

[drrich2]

What part of the U.S.A. are you departing out of?

I'd suggest taking some time to work your way up. It sounds like you'd be up for finishing up an OW course and heading right out to dive cageless with tiger sharks, if money weren't an object.

If you're near the east coast, consider getting your AOW training/cert., and nitrox also, and trying the offshore wreck diving out of North Carolina. Not gonna big big on variety of shark species maybe, but close ups? Oh, yeah, that can happen. My trip report with Olympus Dive Center out of Morehead City, NC, Aug. 2015.

What do you mean when you use the word 'charter?' I've seen it used in different ways.

If total trip cost is the main issue, tell us a budget.

Richard.

 

[NoobDiver1]

Your best bet for seeing multiple shark species close by and for cheap is Jupiter, FL but I don't recommend it for a newly certified diver (current, relatively deep).
In the Bahamas I believe I have seen day trips to Tiger Beach. Could have been with Stuart Cove but I am not sure.

Yeah, I meant to say Tiger Beach in the original post, but it seems only charters go out there (3+ days at $3,000+). That was Stuart Cove and a few others. UNEXSO claims that their daily diving locations are captain's choice, but from what they've told me, it sounds like they are most likely to explore reef sharks.

What part of the U.S.A. are you departing out of?

I'd suggest taking some time to work your way up. It sounds like you'd be up for finishing up an OW course and heading right out to dive cageless with tiger sharks, if money weren't an object.

If you're near the east coast, consider getting your AOW training/cert., and nitrox also, and trying the offshore wreck diving out of North Carolina. Not gonna big big on variety of shark species maybe, but close ups? Oh, yeah, that can happen. My trip report with Olympus Dive Center out of Morehead City, NC, Aug. 2015.

What do you mean when you use the word 'charter?' I've seen it used in different ways.

If total trip cost is the main issue, tell us a budget.

Richard.

Hi Richard, thanks for the response. Yeah, that's the idea. As I mentioned to the other poster, I really don't care to spend more than $3,000 on a multi-day trip (my definition of a charter). UNEXSO offers single-day dives (~2.5 hours) for $100-200, which sounds good to me. I realize there is probably some time to get to certain dive sites. I think I would spend up to $500 on a single dive, provided I can see many species in that one dive.
I'd fly out of the midwest US. The flight alone is roughly $600, I am budgeting a few hundred per night for a hotel, and up to $500 for some dives. Diving is really the only activity I want to do, so I imagine any free time I have would be spent lounging on a beach or something. Total expenses, I would guess, would be around $2,000 or less.

 

[docmartin]

Epicdiving.com does Tiger Beach day trips

 

[NoobDiver1]

Epicdiving.com does Tiger Beach day trips

Thanks, that's a huge help. Know any others? It looks like Epic Diving only goes Sep through March for tiger dives.

 

[diversteve]

Bahamas|Tiger Shark Diving|Caribbean Reef Shark Diving|Shark Courses is likely what you want - but you really should get more diving experience first - around smaller sharks. And be able to get out of the way - big sharks generate a lot of force moving. Get hit by a tail and it's cuts/bruises or worse.

And call/contact Reef Oasis with your expectations/dive count - they may not let you off the boat in the water. Long/pricey trip to GBI if they don't - they make the final call based on whether or not you're competent to do the dives - it's their liability insurance and professional reputation at stake . Plus no matter how many waivers you sign, your heirs could sue. One guy has been killed there - Tigers are known to "mouth" things on occasion to see what they are. At 325 PSI let's hope it's not your hand or leg.

Tigers are big, fast when they want to be, and some like to "bump" divers. Panicking then would not be a good thing - panic and bolting for the surface even worse. Getting bumped by a 20', 1500 lb, Tiger with an open 2' wide mouth? Yeah that's a clean the wetsuit moment. There's also going to be big Lemon Sharks there - probably more than the Tigers.

Get 50 dives first. For what you're paying to stay on Grand Bahama and dive, you should have better air consumption before you go to Tiger Beach - as much as you don't know now, it's an adrenaline rush so you'll go thru your air too fast and have to surface. I don't know the operation but if it's first guy low on air brings the group up - you won't make any new friends on the boat if it's you - they all paid also.

In feeds I've been to (several) they generally bring the group down together, keep them a safe(r) distance away and bring the sharks in. Then everyone leaves together at the end - often with DM's discouraging your new friends from following. No matter how exciting it is, check your air. Last thing you want is to have an OOA situation in the middle of a shark feed.

Unexso does reef shark dives also. Not at Tiger Beach. If Cristina Zenato is still doing those dives, she does an amazing job handling them.

I'm sorry to burst your bubble but you seem to have a very un-realistic picture of what to expect as a new diver. Or how much your lack of refined, practiced skills can be dangerous - not just for you. You should have your air consumption and most importantly buoyancy control dialed in before attempting a dive like that.

 

[drrich2]

I was very glad too see Diver Steve's post; I'd like to see a tiger shark in the wild someday (safely), but it's something I've gradually been working up toward. First saw reef sharks & nurse sharks diving Key Largo. Saw more at Jupiter, Florida (reef, nurse, what may've been a black tip). First did a shark feed dive with reef sharks on a live-aboard out of Belize. Later did close up, fairly big 'spooky looking' shark diving with sand tiger sharks out of North Carolina (they tend to hang out, be inoffensive, and they're present naturally, not agitated by spear fishing or chumming).

A lot of shark diving doesn't provide guarantees of multiple species.

Since you're interested in shark diving, with the understanding some of this ought to be done down the road when you're more experienced (e.g.: comfortable with deep diving, buoyancy control good, have a good idea of your gas consumption rate & projected dive time, can use nitrox, etc...), here are some regional options:

1.) Upper Florida Keys - over 20 dives I saw a few reef & nurse sharks. Trip Report with Rainbow Reef Dive Center, Sept. 2013.

2.) Jupiter, Florida - deep drift diving & the 'reef' looks more like a lush lawn, but the Zion Wreck Trek & MG-111 are nice wreck/wreckage sites, and you should see some reef & maybe nurse sharks over a few dives. In the Spring, the lemon shark aggregation would give you fairly big, scary-looking but relatively benign (no guarantees) shark action. I went during the goliath grouper aggregation - Trip report with Jupiter Dive Center, Aug. 2014.

-----Definitely not a fresh-out-of-OW recommendation, but when you're ready, some people like the shark feed dives conducted by Randy Jordon with Emerald Dive Charters out of Jupiter, and people have mentioned seeing tiger sharks on these dives. I've not done this yet. It's discussed in this trip report, Lemon Sharks of the shipwreck “Esso Bonaire III” with Emerald Charters.

3.) To see a bunch of reef sharks naturally, without baiting, I read good things about the Turks & Caicos live-aboards (Explorer & Aggressor options). Here's a thread on picking a Caribbean live-aboard.

I'm not finished, but my 3 year old is yelling for me.

Richard.

 

[Caveeagle]

I have dove both West Palm and Jupiter this year. Two dives were 'shark dives' where we saw Lemons, Nurse, bull and a Tiger. We had three other dives where we saw Caribbean Reefs that came in relatively close (un baited).

Get Nitrox certified and some experience first. Both dive charters I used required nitrox due to the dive profiles involved. To be honest, I was pretty apprehensive about being in the water with baited sharks. So IMHO, this is the last thing you want to do if your not very confident in your skills and gear. If your not AOW and are using rental gear, I think you are increasing your odds of having issues.

 

[diversteve]

Building on Richards comments - I've seen maybe 100 sharks the past decade. I film them (non-pro) so we often deliberately put ourselves in places where they tend to congregate.

The naturally occurring experiences are the best - the feeds are too contrived - the sharks react differently - just hovering around waiting to be fed.

I dove once in Cay Sal (Bahamas) where we dropped near a feed - the sharks reacted much more naturally - had both a dozen doing slow cruises around us and later we sat on the bottom and let them glide thru us. Really a pleasant experience.

A day later we did a feed nearby - same sharks but much more aggressive, ignored divers and went right for the bait. One clipped me in the side and kept going - so intent on the bait it didn't even stop. After it we left, the crew didn't think it would be safe to dive there that day. It was definitely behavior modification when the bait came out. Maybe that's what you want to see but I prefer more natural encounters.