Shark Diving Outside the Boundries

Recently I was at dinner in San Francisco with a group of friends and the topic of "the most exciting moment" came up. Being the owner of a shark diving company I have a few of these stories on tap, but none compare to Karly Stanley's submarine.

In 2005 I met Karl in Roatan, Honduras and enjoyed an evening with him at close to 2000' in the company of titanic sized six gill sharks. We had roped pigs heads to the side of the vessel and were being dragged down slope and into the abyss by a particularly large female.

That was in the early days, when the very idea of attracting huge sharks from the crushing deep seemed like an impossible endeavour.

The additional bonus is that Karls submarine was hand built by him, making the complete experience one that I have treasured my whole life.

Karls adventures would, eventually, grab the attention of filmmakers and television folks. This clip is from a unique documentary about Karl and his operation now available on Amazon.

Real animal adventures are harder to come by these days and I go to bed at night knowing that guys like Karl keep the flame alive and well, offering for the rest of us, by sheer force of genius and personality, the chance to enjoy an encounter with deepwater giants:

Deepwater sharks-why we shark dive

Back in 2003 I met Karl Stanley in Roatan, Honduras with his homemade submarine Idabel. Karl shared a beer or two with me before casually mentioning he often came across simply huge sharks down at 2000'.

Of course I had to go down for what quickly became a pinnacle adventure moment with sharks. Today Karl's operation is a standout in the small world of submarines. You can see video's of his operation almost anywhere these days.

May we suggest you start saving up now?



Hat Tip: The guys over at Deep Sea News. PD

"Frozen Shark" Falls From Private Jet

SILICON VALLEY, California (CNM) -- A massive frozen shark dropped out of a clear blue sky Tuesday and demolished a house on Granson Street south of the Yahoo! campus today.

The shark fell from a private jet chartered by CEO Jerry Yang of Yahoo!, according to a statement issued Tuesday by the Silicon Valley County Sheriff's Office and the Department of Homeland Security.

"The airplane, a 747 converted transport craft, was en route from China and the campus of Alibaba.com a web portal that sells sharks fin and many illegal sharks products," a joint statement said.

Police said the area has been sealed off pending an investigation.

Representatives from Yahoo! Inc quickly pointed out that the shark was a "cultural practices issue" for Mr Yang and company and he did not want to discuss with authorities how the 17 foot frozen shark had come to be on board the private jet chartered by Yahoo! or if the shark was indeed a threatened/protected species or not.

Emergency personnel were on the scene quickly, no one was hurt in the bizarre accident, authorities said.

The following Underwater Onion was brought to you by Shark Diver. Seriously-Yahoo! Inc continues to invest in and support Alibaba.com a 2 billion dollar web portal that has become the New York Stock Exchange of dried sharks fins and shark products.

Sharks at 3300'-Molokai Hawaii

Got an an email from Andrew Krebs-Smith over at the National Aquarium in Baltimore this morning. They have an ongoing blog and keep in touch with us. We're always on the lookout for sharky content. He sent the following video link over, it's an oldie, but what a video:

Yahoo! Fin Soup Redux

By now those-500 per day-of you who join us here at Underwater Thrills aka Shark Diver know that we are the last people on the planet to sit on the sidelines when news happen within the shark community.

Last year we were all over the place when it came to Internet giant's Yahoo! involvement with Alibaba.com

The issue was the selling of dried shark fins over the Internet and Yahoo!'s one billion dollar investment in Alibaba.com China-who continue to enable the sales of thousands of tons of dried shark fin each and every month. The math works out like this, for every ton of dried shark fin, the bloody harvest is upwards of 700 live sharks. It's ugly economics and even more wasteful than you can imagine when you realize 99% of the rest of the shark goes straight to the bottom of the ocean.

Shark Diver coined the term The New York Stock Exchange of Shark Fins for Alibaba.com and within a few weeks the term stuck.

Here's the latest news from the shark fin front and as can be imagined, the news is quite unimaginable:

BERLIN, May 22 (Reuters) - Overfishing partly caused by booming demand for shark fin soup, a delicacy in some Asian countries, is threatening the existence of 11 kinds of ocean sharks, an international study showed on Thursday.

The fish, often seen as ferocious sea predators, suffer from largely unregulated fishing for their valuable fins, said the report into 21 species of sharks and rays living in the open oceans.

The experts who wrote the study, organised by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, also urged governments to quickly impose catch limits.

"The traditional view of oceanic sharks and rays as fast and powerful too often leads to a misperception that they are resilient to fishing pressure," Sonja Fordham, report co-author and deputy head of the IUCN's shark specialist group, said.

Thresher sharks, silky sharks and the shortfin mako are all under threat, said the report, presented at a May 19-30 U.N. biodiversity conference in the city of Bonn.

The sharks, all "pelagic" or living in the open ocean, include large species such as the whale shark and great white shark. Although relatively few compared to coastal and deep sea sharks, a greater number of pelagic species is under threat.

"The increase in demand for shark fin soup in countries like China is a major driver of the problem," Fordham told Reuters, noting that growing affluence in China, where the soup is served as a treat at celebrations, is behind its increasing popularity.

Shark Diving-New Website for Six-Gills

If you were not at the Northwest Dive Travel Expo last weekend you missed one of the most exciting dive operations to hit the West Coast in the past 5 years.

Hydrus has pioneered Six-Gill caged shark feeding encounters in the waters off of the Pacific Northwest. Thus far Team Hydrus has played host to many of the old timers in the film and dive industry who are always first to "sniff out" the next big thing. Howard Hall and company to mention some names.

"We were the first team in history to successfully attract and dive with Six Gill Sharks in shallow water while the animals were feeding. Over a 5-year period we created a one-of-a-kind program to attract Six Gill sharks. During those years we documented animal behavior never seen before by scientists, started documenting the behavior of individual animals, designed and build many custom pieces of equipment to enhance the observation experience, and conducted a “proof of concept” event at the Seattle Aquarium, which helped them start their Six Gill Shark research program."

Dust off those camera housings and seal up that dry suit...it's Six-Gill time!