Fortunately, I passed....
So I attended Shark university on Sunday....
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It was my first real, as in real big, shark encounter.
I was diving off a buddies boat on a reef about 3-4 miles off Key Biscayne. Seas were flat, less than 1 ft swells and the wind was clam, 6 miles an hour out of the north as we launched turning into 7 mph from the east as the day went on.
The vis was fairly bad, we caught the outgoing tide and it was very dirty and there was a lot of silt in the water from top to bottom....we couldnt see enough in 35 ft to hunt so we came into about 25 ft over some good structure. I was dropping and checking holes or aspetto as long as i could to see what would come into my visibility.... as I was coming out of a large hole I saw a nice eating sized cuda (about 2 ft) all lit up and fins high cruise by, I thought about a shot but didnt get one and just kept checking holes.
about 4 drops later I saw the cuda under the reef in a long tunnel ( about 5 ft across and 15 ft long) I realized both sides were open so I took the shot, i thought it was perfect on the line but he was flapping like a politician's mouth inspite of being stuck to the bottom.
I dove and retrieved him and quickly brained him and started for the boat....knowing how cudas smell I was scaling him in the water as i finned over to the boat. Just off the swim step I gutted him and tossed the fish into the boat and reloaded, at this point I had drifted maybe 25 ft from the boat. I scanned the area below me looking to see what had come in to check out the scales and guts. I saw a lot of small grunts circling over some nice looking yellowtails and I was pleased that I might get another fish in this terrible vis. I took a nice breath and dropped about 15 ft when i saw what looked like a big school of 3 ft macks cruising right over the bottom. This distracted me as 1, that is a lot of big macks and 2 I rarely see any macks close to the bottom let alone 5 or 6.
At this point I am about 13 ft away from them and the vis opens up for me to realize that they are 5 remora and one cobia follow a HUGE bullshark. I thought very calmly to myself" hmm thats a big shark" and almost on cue he turns directly at me. I extend my gun at his nose and swim right at him. I estimate my spear tip got to within 10" of touching him before he turned to the right and vanished in the murk. The flopper on my RA shaft is 3.5" long...using that as my reference his head was easily, conservatively 15" across. my most conservative estimate is 6.5' long, but i would believe it if someone said 7 or 7.5'
I surfaced and yelled "brian, get to the boat" and made my way there POST HASTE checking my 6 and all the numbers in between the whole way back to the boat.
When i got on the boat I was shocked at how my heartrate had not increased and i stayed so calm, then I tried to reach for my fin only to find my foot shaking so hard the CF fins were wobbling
I guess i supressed the adrenal responce as long as I could to stay ready to dive if i had too, but that adrenaline was there!!! I cracked a frosty beer and announced that i was ready to move spots whenever everyone else was...It was the first time i have ever seen a bull that size and the first time one every came at me...his back was flat and his pectoral fins out so I didnt sense and aggresive posture at all, more exploratory and I feel like i did well, i have all my fingers and toes and the limbs they go with so it was a good experience.
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Easier said than done, but panicking in any situation is completely useless.
I don't think there is an issue to continuously dive with sharks as long as viz is good enough. You should know when its time to get out of the water.
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When you wrote that you saw the remora and the cobia, I thought you were going to shoot the cobia.
You would have gotten extra brownie points for that. I probably would have just fouled my suit. Glad you're able to hoist a beer with all limbs attached.
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Excellent response to a critical situation. I believe we give off an energy that may be detected by certain species i.e. predators of all sorts. Remain.com is the proven solution to this situation.
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Damn bro, that had to be sick. Glad you handled it well and made it back in one piece. I have had a few run in with sharks and still get nervous as hell; not sure I ever wont. Good job though, most people I don't think would swim at a shark; I did it once and my GF (who was diving with me) about shat herself.
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When you wrote that you saw the remora and the cobia, I thought you were going to shoot the cobia.
You would have gotten extra brownie points for that. I probably would have just fouled my suit. Glad you're able to hoist a beer with all limbs attached.
it is hilarious you say that about the cobia becuase i heard a tiny voice in the back of my head that said " harry is gonna tease you for skipping out on the cobe
maybe next time hahahaharry and Dr. B, thanks, I agree, panic never helps anything, I am just glad i could do that in a real life setting rather than just hope I would while cruising the good 'ol internets
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Damn bro, that had to be sick. Glad you handled it well and made it back in one piece. I have had a few run in with sharks and still get nervous as hell; not sure I ever wont. Good job though, most people I don't think would swim at a shark; I did it once and my GF (who was diving with me) about shat herself.
as i was swimming at him, which lasted about .062 seconds I was thinking to myself, "this is never gonna work, everyone was just teasing that this is the right thing to do..." and before i finished the thought he was turning away. I was really stoked to be around such a huge animal but I was alert first, stoked second.
I wish you could have heard the sound of my fin shaking...like wompwompwompwomp hahaha
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thanks for sharing that huge expirience LB!!...nice contact with nature..
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as i was swimming at him, which lasted about .062 seconds I was thinking to myself, "this is never gonna work, everyone was just teasing that this is the right thing to do..." and before i finished the thought he was turning away. I was really stoked to be around such a huge animal but I was alert first, stoked second.
I wish you could have heard the sound of my fin shaking...like wompwompwompwomp hahaha
ahha, that would be an awful joke if it didnt work,, oh we willl just tell people to confront the sharks haahaha friggen tools.
p.s congrats it wasnt stealing ur fish or sneaking up on you -
Well done Judah.
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as i was swimming at him, which lasted about .062 seconds I was thinking to myself, "this is never gonna work, everyone was just teasing that this is the right thing to do..." and before i finished the thought he was turning away. I was really stoked to be around such a huge animal but I was alert first, stoked second.
I wish you could have heard the sound of my fin shaking...like wompwompwompwomp hahaha
I bet man. First time I did it was with a shark of similar size to yours. Couldn't have lasted more than 2 seconds but when your playing chicken with a big shark that seems like eternity. The swim back is always interesting, trying to be quick yet remain calm so to not take on a stance of prey evading being eaten. When I got back on board my hands where shaking so bad I could barely get my BC off. I wonder if that always works with Bulls since they are pretty aggressive sharks? I guess the same question could hold for a few aggressive species like tigers.
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I believe that as long as you see the shark you can keep your cool, is that loooooong swim to the boat when you don't see the shark that really gets you. Also is the size of the shark, the smaller ones we don't really care much (actually they better beware cause here they're fair game) but when they're over 6 feet is when really gets interesting. Other than that any shark encounter where you didn't lose any body parts you did well regardless of what you did or felt afterwards:D.
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Should have never scaled the cuda in the water. That's likely the reason it showed up, Miami is really not to crowded with sharks. Too bad you missed an opportunity on the cobe.
I make it a rule on my boat that if someone wants a cuda from a particular spot, they need to shoot it as we are about to change spots. Quickest way to get sharks around the boat is to burley a cuda. Mark The Shark's oldest trick.
Glad you had your experience.
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^^^ true,,the only time ive ever had a shark come in at dania was when hau and i had shot three large cudas and were gutting/scaling them on the spot.
i didnt see the sharks but hau was up the reef from me -
this sunday i shot 3 cudas , the first one I scaled because there was a mutton hanging around and wanted to bring it over , and yes, a huge bull came about a little later. i sank to the bottom to check a few fish and when they spook off it was the shark comming right at me , i put the gun in between us and he took off, so i came to the surface and saw everyone on the boat, yelled at them to get the 3 cudas i had on the stringer 'cause i figured the shark wolud go for them , got them on the boat and kept fishing. he didn't show up anymore.
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I have never seen so many big bullsharks a couple weeks ago. I would say every other dive I had a big bull coming by to see whats up. I was unlucky though, because all the bulls didn't have any Cobia.
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