Diane MacEachern Firing on all Cylinders?

Beware the Nurse shark encounter experts

As much as we dislike the current trend within the the shark conservation community to fabricate facts, inflate research numbers, and simplify complex issues down to the level of single celled organisms, we're no fans of those who take on the commercial shark diving industry either.

Enter Diane MacEachern, a blogger who dropped a stinker of an article onto the Internet this week with all the grace and finesse of a Hakapik wielding sealer on a Canadian ice flow.

The article is called Shark Cage Diving: Helping or Hurting? and it's filled to the brim with assumptions, non facts, and a quote from a guy who's selling a book:

“In general, people are intruding upon and disturbing wild animals far too much. We need to leave them alone and in peace far more than we do. Shark cage diving is a good example of how we are messing around with great white sharks too much, habituating them to people, having them associate chum (bait) with people, and drawing them to locations where surfers and divers are recreating.“

Yes, yes, we have heard this all before, but has anyone heard of the great pro-industry research data into white shark habituation from Australia?  How about Isla Guadalupe?

The fact is articles like these, written by self avowed sharks divers (Diane's total shark experience was a fetid pool with a lone Nurse shark in it) do a lot of harm to an industry that we recently blogged about. One that suffers, three decades on, from an almost complete lack of regional and government/tourism support.

Globally our industry generates tens of millions of dollars and educates tens of thousands of divers, and remains one of the safest adventure sport industries out there. That's a fact. The rest of it, the assumptions that regionally our industry is responsible for shark attacks on surfers, divers, and little kids on inflatable dinosaurs is just, "pull it out of your ass media meat grinder material". There's nothing to back any of it up, not a single paper, no data, just good old fashioned hysteria.

Unfortunately it plays, and plays well, especially when Nurse shark diving experts, afraid of attacks, decide to get busy with blogs.

What our industry does not do well is handle mainstream media output. In terms of an international body we handle the few ridiculous industry videos, idiotic images, and industry/conservation messaging with the same care and preparation that a five year old exhibits with a set of overlarge paint brushes, three color paint, and small black and white images asking one to, "paint in the lines".

We need to do better.

In terms of a global industry, after 30 years, it is high time to create an industry body. One that works with regional government and tourism members for support, action, and one that handles the global media output. A few images and video, some shot years ago, are still being used today to malign an entire industry worldwide. These images appear for simplistic reasons, and no one is ever held accountable. But they do damage none the less.

It's an interesting thought, a global commercial shark diving body, and a bold vision, we wonder if anyone is up for a challenge?

Shark Cage Diving - Guadalupe Island Trip Report 2011

Photo Jack Mears 2011 Guadalupe Island

When Jack Mears called us in early 2011 his energy, excitement, and love of sharks came through the phone lines from the U.K as clear as the line itself.

This was a guy who just had to go shark diving with the Whites of Guadalupe.

Jack is now an Official Shark Diver and sent us this trip report from August. We'll have Jack come back and join us anytime because hard core sharks fans like him are why we exist:

Jack Mears Trip Report 25-29 August 2011.

I booked my trip with Shark Diver after having previously been on 2 unsuccessful White shark diving trips in Australia (we did have an angry young Mako which helped but still..). 

I have to admit this made me slightly skeptical of the guarantee offered to see sharks on every trip but after a lot of web research and speaking to Patric the CEO at Shark Diver it definitely looked like the best opportunity/trip.

I boarded the boat late in the evening before the date of the trip, met everybody, got paired up with a bunk mate and then after a quick beer went to bed ready to clear customs in Mexico the following morning (which was a complete breeze). We then sailed out to Guadalupe – the boat does move around quite a lot it is an ocean after all but after knocking back a few sea sickness tablets I didn’t have any problems the whole way there (or back).

The first day started with us all being matched into groups for the cage rotations, 4 divers at a time in groups of 8 for the 2 cages. I can’t remember the exact time frame but I’m pretty sure a shark turned up within about ten minutes of being in the water. They then (as promised) turned up during nearly every dive nearly for the rest of the trip. I believe there was only one dive where a shark didn’t turn up but out of about 12/13 dives it seemed quite reasonable to let them have one off.

All in all we had about 10 known sharks I think but the largest, Jacques was around for a good few hours and circled the cages slowly and came very close again and again enabling everybody to get some really good photos and videos. Every time I thought I wouldn’t get a better opportunity to get another one, there he was again right next to us. Bearing in mind that was only one shark on one day of the whole trip, we still had plenty of other sharks to look at and (try to) photograph over the 2 and a half days diving.

After the last dive of the day it was then time to grab a beer or two and sit in the sun waiting for dinnertime as the sun went down. Every meal from start to finish was phenomenal, Mark and Alyssa in the galley did not disappoint on any meal over the whole trip it really was good. Combine the food with the people, the weather, the beer and obviously, the sharks and it was a very good trip.

I haven’t even mentioned the rest of the crew - Martin the divemaster was always helpful and friendly as were the rest of the crew who helped with everything from the chumming to our weights and getting us in and out of the cages whilst also running the boat at the same time. The Captains, Spencer and Kyle, helped out with the work and were more than happy to talk to us at any point as well as the deckhands, Nick and Kyle who were always doing something around the boat. There’s a crew member awake all night as well which helps if you can’t sleep or you have a particularly loud ‘snorer’ in your cabin.

Overall the trip exceeded my expectations, the crew were very good and all of the other divers on the boat helped to make it better than I thought it was going to be. The sea sickness was the only concern I had but I took enough pills and was fine the whole time.

I would highly recommend it to anyone and if I wasn’t already planning their Bahamas trip next year I would definitely be planning on going again.

Cheers,

Jack.