11/02/11 Shark Dive
Going on a shark hunt… Going to see a big one… I’m not scared…
It was an early morning start on Saturday (29th Jan) as Jakob eagerly awoke everyone who was going on the shark dive. The weather however, was gloomy and the chances of going to South Marianne were looking less and less likely.
Meeting up with Chris and Ro (from our sister site Cap Ternay) at Octopus Divers, Emily, Ashleigh, Calum, Dan, Harry and Jakob awaited the outcome of where we would be heading…
South Marianne was a go.
“We must be crazy” Emily and Ashleigh discussed as the boat flew across the water with the rain pelting down, as they held fins in front of their faces to stop the needle like rain hitting them. The boat kept driving, bashing through the waves and heading into the unknown, as the horizon was a thick white veil of heavy rain. Somehow, the captain knew where he was heading, as after a 40-minute boat ride we arrive at our long awaited destination, South Marianne.
Two by two, we back rolled into the warm water and out of the cold rain, where we looked down into the crystal clear water to see the vast granite landscape 20 meters below.
Following our dive master (DM) down we descended with keen eyes, ready to be the first to see a shark. Rattle, rattle, rattle. Getting our attention with his rattler, our DM pointed out the first shark, camping out in a rock crevis. He saw everything before it was even visible to our eyes and was great at pointing out the sharks and rays, including massive marble rays over 2 meters wide.
The dive was nice and steady with Jakob and Dan stopping to take photos of things as we went. Forty minutes into the dive, we had seen coral, fish and rays. Surely the sharks were out there and sure enough; rattle, rattle, rattle. Grey reef sharks, over 25 of all sizes were circling aroung a boulder formation as gracefully as ever. Very professionally, we lined up near the sharks, at least after Jakob signalled to Harry to line up, after he got a little excited and swam towards the sharks. Lying on the bottom, we watched the sharks circle round, Calum having a close encounter as a shark gave him a nice teethy smile as it darted towards him and then away. Sadly, the sharks moved away as another dive group came close by and by the second time we found the school of sharks our gauges were starting to read low.
Making our stop at five meters we could see everyone was smiling, no one more so then Jakob as he blew kisses to people under water. Batfish circled round and even tried to bite Ashleigh’s finger. However, after 60 minutes we had to surface and return home to tell the amazing events we had encountered that day to the rest of the Curieuse crew.
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