Shark experiences

[Not My Real Name]

I just watched this YT video. Delightful young lady living the life, but the shark experiences are pretty amazing. I'm not sure I like the baiting in of sharks, but she seems to know what she is doing.



My own experiences last year were a little different. Started with snorkeling in South Pass at Fakarava Atoll where with wife and daughter we were thrilled by all the black-tip reef sharks swimming around us, but basically ignoring us. And I never had an issue with them subsequently. But later I did a solo drift snorkel in the pass where I first swam out towards the drop off and suddenly a grey reef shark came shooting out of the depths of the pass straight at me, only veering off at the last second, then circled me for a while before leaving. That unsettled me and I swam back to my dinghy on a mooring and drifted back along the pass. Later on Tahanea Atoll I did a similar drift snorkel in one of the passes there with a very experienced family (the guy could stay down for several minutes at a time), and when three grey reef sharks started circling us they decided we should bail. Strangely when I repeatedly solo drift snorkeled outside of the reef over the dropoff outside of Anse Mayot at Taou Atoll, I did not see any sharks (or when scuba diving the drop off outside the reef at North Pass of Fakarava or at the White Wall at Viani Bay in Fiji later).

I also tried solo drift snorkeling through the pass at Maupihaa, and there were so many grey reef sharks I bailed. Later, when I was completely alone in Beveridge Reef on the way to Fiji, there were lots of grey reef sharks and they would follow me around as I was spearfishing, so I stopped, but eventually one became far too curious coming right up to me and it took two jabs with my spear to get it to leave me alone, upon which I bailed completely. I still don't know if they are that dangerous, but they are really mean looking compared with the black-tipped or even white-tipped sharks.

And just to acknowledge, in Fiji near Savu I paid for a "shark dive" where they bait them in with a massive trashcan filled with tuna heads and skeletons, resulting in large numbers of nurse sharks and several very big bull sharks circling us closely, along with a few beautiful silver-tips. Sadly no tiger sharks like in the several YT videos of these dives, see below.

The sharks all over the Tuamotus were amazing. A few weeks before we got there a whale carcass had washed up. There were reportedly huge tigers in the lagoon, among many others.

The grey reefs don't bother me, nor the blacktips or most of the other reef sharks we saw.

I wouldn't care to be in the water with a tiger (or a white) without a cage around.

Those two species are a bit more inclined to come give you a gumming just to see what you are. Bulls can be prickly, too, but not so overtly aggressive. But they're also now to go way the hell up rivers, and are reportedly more aggressive in some of those murkier areas than in the ocean.

We heard about the legendary shark dives in Beqa, but we never made it over there.

 

[mckenzie.keith]

I will not give up spearfishing. I am woefully bad at it, but it is an interesting challenge and of course I eat the entire fish, so it is far more efficient than eating store fish given the enormous waste involved in that process from start to end. When there are sharks around I usually bail or just swim around. Even when no sharks obvious, I get the fish out of the water as fast as possible. I am often far from my dinghy so have to hold it up out of the water while I swim back. So far the easiest place was Beveridge Reef where the fish were almost totally naive and I hit first time each shot, got four nice little ones that fed me for four days. Here's three of them.

I also caught quite a few small mahimahis and tunas, all excellent eating. I don't see a difference between the methods, if anything the fishing was worse as the big ones regularly broke my gear, so there are fish out there with hooks in them. I intentionally use small lures in hope of avoiding the big ones, also because I don't have a freezer, so can only keep raw fish for a couple of days in my little fridge.

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Watch out for ciguatera when eating reef fish.

 

[he b gb]

I don't know how things work in Australia. In the US, or at least in California, you need a fishing license to take fish. There are size limits and quantity limits. And the taking of abalone is now actually banned because there are so few of them. Seems like Australia might need to protect the coral trout. One good thing about spearfishing is that you see the fish before you shoot it so you can avoid taking of the wrong species.

So true Keith in regards to seeing your targeted species before spearing. Still plenty of trout(coral) in the reefs off the Queensland coast thanks to the state govt declaring green(no take) zones in the majority of popular reefs around 25 to 30 years ago. Also there are strict bag and size limits which are pretty well policed.
After spending 14 months cruising and spear fishing from Oz to Tahiti and back a few years ago I couldn’t believe the scarcity of trout in most of the island nations (as compared to Oz) that we visited. Seems like the authorities are doing a pretty good job here in Australia in comparison.

 

[kiwin]

So true Keith in regards to seeing your targeted species before spearing. Still plenty of trout(coral) in the reefs off the Queensland coast thanks to the state govt declaring green(no take) zones in the majority of popular reefs around 25 to 30 years ago. Also there are strict bag and size limits which are pretty well policed.
After spending 14 months cruising and spear fishing from Oz to Tahiti and back a few years ago I couldn’t believe the scarcity of trout in most of the island nations (as compared to Oz) that we visited. Seems like the authorities are doing a pretty good job here in Australia in comparison.

Eating reef fish from inside the reef is a lottery that I am not prepared to take part in. I have seen people with ciguatera and it's not for me. Pelagic fish are safe. Some species like Barracuda are never safe, though interestingly Panama has never had any ciguatera.

Feeding sharks, or any wild animals is mind blowingly dumb. If you want to train sharks to attack humans, that's a good way. Feeding of any wild animal changes behaviour and lessens fitness.
Cleaning fish off the back of the boat is also dodgy - never swim off the back of the boat in the same anchorage you cleaned your fish in.
There were two people killed by sharks in the Whitsundays a few years ago from that very action.

I first came through the South Pacific in '89. The fish life there now is less than 25% of that first trip. I am off to the Pacific again in about a month, but the diving has ceased to be such an attraction. The massive wholesale destruction of the reef is incomprehensible. There are still a few places, like Somosomo strait in Fiji which are good, but 95% of the South Pacific reef is a brown wasteland with an abundance only of algae. I live for the good bits and will be returning to the Somosomo strait and the Lau group again this year. The possibility exists for a large bleaching event this coming southern summer and inevitably, if that does eventuate there will be another massive die-off.

 

[Goodvibes]

I wouldn't care to be in the water with a tiger (or a white) without a cage around.

In Fitzroy Reef Lagoon QLD about five years ago, 45' cat. Spent a couple of hours snorkeling, returned to the boat and was washing off on the back deck.

Something caught my eye, looked behind the boat to see a massive tiger shark heading between the hulls doing a lazy 2 knots, checking us out. It was long yeah, but looking down on it as it passed under, the girth was shocking, a huge thing.

Where there are mainly marine mammals you get white sharks, where there are marine reptiles you get tigers, their teeth are shaped to cut through shell. I recall a turtle researcher doing an autopsy on a big tiger that died in the shark nets off a Bundaberg beach. It had two turtle tags in it. They are attached to both front flippers of the turtle. They concluded that the shark had swallowed the at least the entire front half of an adult green turtle.

 

[Goodvibes]

I have seen people with ciguatera and it's not for me. Pelagic fish are safe.

Spanish Mackerel sometimes have it.

 

[he b gb]

That’s true goodvibes, it’s illegal to sell the Spanish Mackerel caught in Hervey Bay due to the high incidence of ciguatera.
I’ve also seen Tiger sharks in Fitzroy Lagoon, probably lured in by punters on charter boats cleaning their catch in the lagoon.
Kiwin, I was also very disappointed with the quality of the reefs in the pacific, so much algae probably due to too much nutrients getting dumped into the drink?

 

[LewSipfher]

Watch out for ciguatera when eating reef fish.

Pelagic fish can have ciguatera also, albeit more rarely.

The best thing is to talk to locals wrt areas that are safe. I eat barracuda, but per my friend will only eat barry caught on the banks; says Oceanside catch will hit you. He also won’t eat any jack after getting hit from an amberjack, but so far so good for me.

another tip is to eat smaller fish, as cig is cumulative

 

[Zonker]

I don't mind the little reef sharks.

When they get to 8' and start circling closer and closer and acting "sharky" as my daughter said, we would exit the water.

 

[TheDragon]

I mostly avoided reef fish last year in FP, but I met a longtimer there who showed me species in Fakarava one could eat. I still did so carefully, eating only a small portion day1, then the rest day2. Only had a slight tingling from one parrotfish, so did not eat the rest of that one. No problems in Beveridge Reef or Fiji. In Fakarava I had long chats with at least three people who had experienced really severe poisoning and it seemed awful, so definitely to be avoided.

On the coral, indeed Somosomo channel in Fiji was outstanding. It was only my sixth dive since qualification in 1984, but I got all the way down the White Wall to almost 100ft, simply stunning. And I did find some reefs pretty much destroyed, e.g. at Wailagilala Atoll in Fiji, presumably due to Cyclone Winston in 2016. And of course I have no idea what the coral was like years ago, but the Tuamotu passes were amazing, outside the reefs was great, and Beveridge Reef was spectacular. I hope to get to Minerva Reef and Tonga later this season and hope they will be similar.

 

[kiwin]

Asking the locals about which fish are safe can be a trap. The locals get ciguatera the most! I was talking to Valentine on Anse Amiot, Toau and she had had ciguatera about once every other year for decades, so I took her advice with a punch of salt. As someone said, smaller fish are safer. I also never eat amberjack, or spanish mackerel. I am extremely choosy - mahi mahi or tuna is always safe.

 

[LewSipfher]

mahi mahi or tuna is usually safe.

FIFY.

This is a pic of a tuna caught in <10’ water, on the banks. That this tuna was hunting in reef areas is certain.

While the likelihood of cig in pelagic species is lower, it has been documented.

FTA: “Ciguatera toxins rarely contaminate pelagic fish such as tuna, marlins, dolphinfish or other ray-finned fish. Ciguatoxin can be found around the world in the tropical reef belt between 35 degrees north latitude and 35 degrees south latitude.”

Chapter 3: Seafood Poisonings

Seafood poisonings are illnesses caused by ingestion of a toxin in seafood, either inherent to the species or from external contamination.

dan.org

 

[Kenny Dumas]

They eat lots of barracuda in Panama but not a good idea elsewhere. “No, really, it’s safe here Mon”

 

[Bull City]

I buy my fish at the market. So far, I have not been attacked or bitten.

 

[LewSipfher]

I buy my fish at the market. So far, I have not been attacked or bitten.

But market fish have no guarantee you won’t get ciguatera…

 

[Bristol-Cruiser]

Back to sharks, as someone from Lake Ontario, where there are no (fish) sharks that I know of, we had two shark experiences in our travels. In Suvarov, there were about six boats anchored. Each boat had its own group of 3 or 4 reef sharks, say 4-footers, lazily swimming around. The park wardens said it was fine to swim with them so we did with no issue. One day my wife trimmed some excess fat from meat and threw it into the water without thought. The lazy sharks responded instantly and violently. It was incredible to watch.

The other time was in Mossel Bay in South Africa where we did a cage dive with great white sharks. They were all 12 to 14'. The big ones migrate eastward. We saw them on our way from Richards Bay without realizing what they were. When we got to the boat I noticed the aluminum cage was pretty beaten-up, I wondered why until we got into the cage and had sharks, attracted by big fish heads, run into the cage. For obvious reasons they tell you to only hold on to the horizontal bar inside the cage and not the cage itself. You get within less than a foot of them. They have quite scary, dead-looking eyes. Mossel Bay is where a lot of famous footage of great whites hunting seals comes from. There is an island which is home to many hundreds of seals there and it keeps the sharks away from the nearby, popular beach, which has never seen an attack. If you happen to be in the area, the cage experience is well worth it.

 

[kent_island_sailor]

I buy my fish at the market. So far, I have not been attacked or bitten.

The pelicans hanging around the Newport Beach seafood market were looking pretty aggressive, you might have both of those things happen there.

 

[LewSipfher]

Good point @kent_island_sailor

The pelicans at Robbie’s in Islamorada are fairly scary, and that hook on their beak ends can do damage

 

[ProaSailor]

Rare Footage of Bethany Hamilton Right After Shark Attack, MARCH 20, 2022

Rare Footage of Bethany Hamilton Right After Shark Attack

Watch rare footage of Bethany Hamilton shortly after the shark attack that would forever change her life. If only she knew what her future would hold.

www.theinertia.com

"When you watch Bethany Hamilton surf today, it’s easy to forget she has one arm — because she rips. Since the accident in 2003, when she lost her left limb to a tiger shark, Hamilton has gone on to have three children, surf Jaws, win contests, produce two films documenting her journey, and start a non-profit, the Beautifully Flawed Foundation."​

Shark Attack Surviving Surfer, Who Lost an Arm at 13, Once Detailed How She Got Through a Horrific Experience So Peacefully, 11/29/2022

Shark Attack Surviving Surfer, Who Lost an Arm at 13, Once Detailed How She Got Through a Horrific Experience So Peacefully

Bethany Hamilton survived a shark attack when she was 13. While lost her left arm, she didn't lose her resilience and continued surfing.

www.essentiallysports.com

"Bethany first hopped on a surfboard when she was only three. The young surfer’s talent on the surfboard allowed her to compete at just eight years old. However, the unthinkable happened to Hamilton in 2003, when she was 13. The competitive surfer went for a morning surf when a shark attacked her. Hamilton was lying on her surfboard and speaking to her friend Alana Blanchard when a massive tiger shark bit off her left arm."​

IMHO, deliberately swimming with sharks is as stupid as running with the bulls in Pamplona.

 

[kent_island_sailor]

IMHO, deliberately swimming with sharks is as stupid as running with the bulls in Pamplona.

I'll swim with them if they come around, but I won't feed them.
IMHO feeding sharks is like feeding alligators, their small brains do NOT compute "People feed me, I love people, they are so nice to me", they compute "People = Food"
* funny shark story from the Cayman Islands. The divemaster said that they had problems with divers grabbing nurse sharks by the tail to drag them out for photo ops. They seem to hide their heads under coral when divers get too close. He said sharks are very flexible and can bite you while you have their tail and nurse sharks have very strong jaws, they eat shellfish by crushing them. They needed to use a tire iron to pry the sharks off of a couple of divers. Apparently this is quite painful despite the sharks having blunt teeth