Celebrating the Majesty of Sharks.
Whilst on the discussion of Seven Gills .....
My first trip out to Neptune Islands to cage dive with the Great Whites was in August 2008 but unfortunately we went 5 days without sighting any GWS. One morning we came out on deck to find one of the tuna baits gone ... which started to excite us with the possibility of a shark in the area. We'll the excitement eventually waned as we sat through the morning without a sighting. Come afternoon, it was decided that we would submerse the bottom cage and scour the bottom for sharks. A medium size tuna was thrown into the cage to lure anything we could find.
As we descended, it was decided to leave the cage gate open to photograph the large rays that skimmed across the sand ... but someone forgot to tie the tuna to the cage and it slipped out. 15 - 20 minutes later, all we had sighted was rays and schools of small jacks/trevally - no sharks. Long story short, Tim decided he wasn't going to leave a perfectly good tuna on the bottom so he slipped out of the cage to salvage the tune ... and then ... out of no where ... pounces a seven gill shark (a rare sighting for the Neptunes), latches onto the tuna and was not letting go.
It was a tug-of-war ... man against shark for a chunk of tuna. The result was a draw. By the time the shark had had enough he had already scoffed half the tuna .. and Tim returned to the cage with the other half. I guess you call that an even money bet. This is one of the images I snapped of that tussle between man and shark.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by iDive Sharks on -
Great story there John, this is the stuff we need. Good fun stories of great encounters, cheers for that one, and great image to boot. Good stuff.
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Permalink Reply by Tony Dra'gon on -
Hi John.
We were on the trip after that and heard the same story from Tim. I think the Seven Gill caught him quite by surprise, he said he thought it looked "quite gummy, until bit a tuna in half!".
Sadly we didn't get to see him, or any GWS.
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Permalink Reply by John Natoli on -
Hi Tony,
yes you're right. Tim was very much caught by surprise ... but, hell he enjoyed it. Here are some more photos of that episode ...
I guess in a way these sharks do look "quite gummy". I happened to get this shot after it finished in the tug-of-war.
... and then, the shark thought it would go back for another go!
For a little shark, he made a mess of the tuna in no time ... the final remains.
Unfortunately, this was the only shark we saw in 5 days. Apparently they went for a 6 week period without sighting one GWS - and they were very mystified by this. It was peak season and the first time in 42 yrs that they had not sighted a shark at that time of the year? The CSIRO eventually reported a large whale carcass was spotted somewhere in the area and that the carcass was attracting the sharks away from the Neptunes.
Even though we didn't spot a GWS, the trip was made awesome with the stop over at Hopkins Island and our dive with the Australian Sea Lions. I would do this trip all over again just for the Sea Lions.
John.
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Permalink Reply by Tony Dra'gon on
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Hi John awsome pictures. I remember the whole crew were really puzzled by the absence of the GWS, hadn't heard the whale carcass explanation before, makes sense though. We went back almost a year later (last July) and finally did get to see them. Haven't been to Hopkins yet, funnily enough I did get buzzed by a lareg Fur Seal this morning though.
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