May 2012.
1988, Cayo Piedra, Icacos Peninsula, Cuba. In this reef I did my "diving baptism", which was a bit special: I was at almost 20 meters, in a sunken ship and... with a shark! Having successfully passed this Cuban test, I was totally "hooked" to the underwater world and sharks. This small contact I had with them, in this particular case it was with a nurse shark, made it clear to me that more than man-eating killers as they are called by popular belief, they were simply one more species of fish of the many I saw in my baptism, a "little" bigger and with huge teeth in their mouths. From that day on I began to love these animals and to think that they were going to be my diving companions for the rest of my life.
DIVING WITH SHARKS, MY EXPERIENCE AND FEELINGS
It was almost six years before I had another encounter with sharks. At the beginning of 1993 I left my career as a computer scientist and ventured exclusively into the world of diving. That gave me all the options to be able to make trips and have contact with sharks again.
In 1994 my heart was racing on the bottom of the Maldives when I was no more than 20 meters away from a whitetip reef shark. Its size was no more than five feet, but it looked a little bigger than the nurse shark I saw in Cuba. At that moment I thought, "what if it turns and lunges at me? My response was almost immediate. I said to myself... "and if in Cuba, being closer, they didn't do anything to you, why should they do it now? I calmed down, continued watching him and the little animal continued flapping its wings until it disappeared behind a reef. Ignorant of me, when I got out of the water I thought... "I have dived with sharks again! (not to say... shark). The truth is that nobody could tell me at that time, as much as I liked sharks, how far I was going to be able to go.
Until the end of the 90's I was diving in various places around the world but without having much contact with sharks. Where I started to feel what it was really like to dive with sharks was at Cocos Island, Costa Rica, in 2000.
Located 400 miles off the coast, Cocos Island harbors an enormous amount of sharks. In these rough Pacific waters, especially because of the currents, I was able to watch hundreds of hammerhead sharks pass over my head. Floating between two waters at 30 meters deep and seeing their silhouettes, you feel from a prey at their mercy to one of them. The hammerhead, in this case the Sphyrna levini, is a shy shark but on several occasions it approaches divers to look around. This was the case, one of them descended a few meters from the bulk of the "platoon" and stared at me just two meters away, as if to say ... "who are you? A few bubbles were enough to unfortunately make him quickly move away from me, but the experience was unforgettable.
Also at Coco's I had a "fun" encounter with whitetip sharks, doing a night dive in the famous Manuelita Island channel. Almost 100 sharks were trying to hunt between some rocks and only I had the idea to get in between them to record the hunt. The result of my intrepid performance was my right spotlight bitten by two of them. Anyway... I would do it again.
Over the next few years I have dived dozens of sites in search of more shark encounters. Some of them have been: Australia, Sipadan, Honduras, Los Roques, Mexico, Djiobouti, Baja California, Mozambique, Galapagos, South Africa and Bahamas, being these last two enclaves where my experiences have been the most radical.
Without leaving aside Galapagos, where you can dive with the spectacular whale shark, almost 15 meters long, hundreds of hammerheads or the famous Silkys and Galapagueños, South Africa left me very marked by my encounter with the white shark.
The objective of this trip was none other than to dive with white sharks inside a cage. Although it is a shark that can reach seven meters in length and weigh almost 2,500 kg, there is no danger with it, if you are inside the cage.
Just to see how a "critter" of almost five meters long passes by the boat, it is worth being there. Even more if you see how it pulls its head out of the water trying to take the bait. At that moment you realize the brutal strength that the largest predator of the oceans has in its jaw. But the most brutal sensation was when I got inside the cage and the shark came towards it, trying to take the bait that was right next to me, but on the other side of the cage. I saw, just inches from my face, two rows of teeth mercilessly tearing apart a giant piece of tuna. Barbaric!
After that experience I decided that someday I had to dive with "the great white"... without a cage. Said and done, the following year we contacted 100×100 Africa, a company specialized in shark trips of which I am now a collaborator, and we organized an expedition to dive with the great white without cage. We did not go to the Dyer Islands (where I dived the last time) because diving with bait with white sharks was forbidden, but we did try the feat in False Bay, very close to those islands.
The guide, a group of friends, the relevant bait, Mike (skipper of the dive center) and I, ventured out to try cage-free diving in white shark waters. We left Simon's town, got in the water, put the bait in and I don't know if by luck or misfortune, the "white" didn't come to our rendezvous.
The second attempt was a few months later when I filmed with Jesús Calleja the episode of Desafío Extremo "Diving with white sharks in South Africa". Unfortunately we didn't have the weather conditions and the luck factor for the great white to show up and we could dive with him without a cage, so the thorn of the white shark is still latent...
My passion for sharks and wanting to be in direct contact with them took me to the Bahamas, a place where you can dive with grays, lemons, bulls and... tiger sharks, the second most dangerous shark in existence.
TIGER SHARKS, FULL CONTACT
Tiger Beach, north of West End, in Grand Bahama, is characterized for being one of the places in the world where you can dive with these sharks.
When you get to the exact diving spot and see such turquoise and transparent waters, your body asks you to get into the water immediately. But no, before starting the diving operation, you have to do something else beforehand, what they call "Wrangling".
Wrangling is one of the most exciting parts of the tiger encounter. In principle it is used to attract the sharks to the area where the boat is and thus enjoy "their presence" underwater. The sharks, by insistently following the bait, come within a few centimeters of the boat. At this point, if the shark takes the bait and doesn't let go, you can see the shark nodding from one place to another, with half its body out of the water, trying to get the fish. Sometimes the struggle is such that the tiger can ride on top of the stern platform of the boat. When this happens everyone on deck tends to go silent....
After the wrangling, eight to ten tiger sharks showed up for the bait, along with two dozen lemon sharks attracted by the smell of fish also lurking below the boat.
It was time to jump over 30 sharks between lemon and tiger sharks. At that moment everything goes through your mind: madness, excitement, thrill, admiration and... nothing. You really don't have to think about anything to jump over so many sharks and quickly go down to the bottom where safety awaits you.
I jumped, went down and found myself surrounded by that swarm of fins. The objective was to film the show for a documentary: "Sharks of the Bahamas". The tigers, a little shy at first, circled several meters away from me. After a while, the most daring one swung its head towards me from about five meters away. The expectation was incredible! The shark did not hesitate and rammed into my camera without hesitation. In an instant I saw a head almost a meter wide, just a meter away from my camera. Brutal! I don't know if the best or the worst thing was that with the contact, the shark moved away and stopped being next to me.
After a while there were more and more "intense" approaches. It seemed that the sharks wanted to play with me or pose for my camera. At some points I counted more than ten sharks around me. It wasn't easy but it wasn't very difficult to hold on in front of so many sharks. If you are calm, do not disturb or deliberately hit the animals, and above all do not lose sight of them with someone to cover your back, in principle there is no problem.
The truth is that I don't know how this experience with the white sharks would have turned out, but what I felt and experienced with the tigers was the greatest thing I have ever done as far as sharks are concerned. I felt so good, so at ease and so... at home, that I was left wanting more, so much more.
IMPORTANCE OF THEIR EXISTENCE AND HOW TO PROTECT THEM
Sharks are essential to marine ecosystems. They achieve a population balance in their food species and maintain the "health" of the ocean by eliminating sick animals. However, their vulnerability due to the small number of young, slow sexual maturation and reproductive cycles that can reach up to 22 months, increases with the scarcity of prey, pollution, habitat destruction and the cruel practice of "finning" (cutting shark fins).
According to scientists, the exploitation of large sharks worldwide in recent decades is mainly due to the growing demand for shark fin and meat, but also because the sharks become 'by-catch' during other catches (tuna and swordfish). In fact, according to a report by the environmental organization Oceana, every year about 200 million sharks fall into the nets of fishing boats, either intentionally or accidentally.
For example, the gradual disappearance of large sharks in the northwest Atlantic Ocean has caused a decline in the populations of oysters, clams, oysters and other mollusks, according to a study by American scientists. In their study, the experts explain that the gradual disappearance of the large sharks has in turn led to an increase in the population of medium-sized sharks and rays (which serve as food for the larger species that have disappeared). Since small shark species feed on bivalves and shellfish, the populations of these species are seriously affected by the depletion of large sharks.
Although it is clear that this can significantly affect the trade of seafood businesses, jeopardizing their economy, the exact consequences of these factors are currently unknown. The irreversible depletion or disappearance of a vital species of the oceans such as the shark does not bode well, and fatal domino effects can be predicted with the destabilization and irreparable deterioration in the functions of the marine ecosystem.
We must stop the indiscriminate shark fishing by many governments (including the Spanish government, which after Taiwan, is the world's largest supplier of shark fins) that is destroying shark populations, as well as stop the cruel business of "finning", controlled by mafias as powerful and atrocious as arms trafficking or drug trafficking.
If we do not stop this trail of crimes, very soon, perhaps in decades, we will lose the shark, a creature that has survived for more than 400 million years, resisting the climatic impact that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs and that today, because of human greed, we are bringing to the brink of extinction.
How can we help protect them?
Although it is not an easy task, we can all contribute our "grain of sand" by taking the following actions:
- Do not order shark fin soup. It is totally uncertain that it gives more sexual vigor besides being a totally tasteless soup.
- Do not eat shark meat directly. There are other fishes that are equally or better tasting than sharks, such as swordfish.
- Promote among our community that endangered sharks are being fished in many countries.
- Encourage divers to get to know sharks and to dive with them. This will make governments detect an increase of income in the tourism sector and think about protecting instead of killing sharks.
- Advise in general audiences that the shark is not a killer of humans, but quite the opposite.
BASIC KNOWLEDGE ABOUT SHARKS
The first sharks appeared in the oceans 400 million years ago, although their shape bore little resemblance to today's sharks. Their evolution over 300 million years led them to have the appearance we all know today, which is why it is said that modern sharks emerged around 100 million years ago. Some of these sharks, such as the Carcharodon megalodon, an extinct shark and ancestor of the great white shark, may have reached almost 20 meters in length, according to studies of their teeth and jaws. At that time, this predator became the greatest hunter of the already abundant marine animals.
There are currently 368 species of sharks. They belong to the class called "chondrichthyans" or cartilaginous fish, that is, their skeleton is made of cartilage instead of bone. One of their characteristics is that their teeth are not fused to the jaw and they replace them with new ones continuously, quickly and in series, thanks to a cavity along the edge of the jaw. This allows them to always have new teeth in place of those that break, wear out or become detached.
The skin of sharks is formed by a kind of scales known as dermal denticles. One of the functions of this very specific skin is to act as a muffler, since water is distributed into the crevices and not outwards, limiting friction against the water, improving mobility, speed and making movement much quieter.
Unlike other fish that have gills, sharks have five to seven pairs of gills, usually located on the sides of the head. Also as a curious fact, the liver represents up to 30% of the body weight.
As a result of an evolution of their ears, sharks, like other fish, have a lateral line on each side of their body that allows them to detect pressure changes and movements in the water. They also have in their snout the so-called "ampullae of Lorenzini", organs sensitive to electric fields, especially small electric fields generated by other living beings in the water.
The eyes of sharks have excellent vision because behind the retina they have a "tapetum lucidum", which acts as a mirror that reflects light rays, thus increasing the light available to the photoreceptors and improving vision in low light conditions (e.g. when hunting in caves, at night or at great depths). They are also considered to have highly developed senses of smell and taste, which allows them to detect the presence of potential prey from quite a distance, based on a few molecules.
