Dive Site "Oceania" - Unveiled 1.1. 2010

The most anticipated white shark discovery in the past decade will be unveiled to the public on January.1.2010

Code named "Oceania" this unique and remote dive site, featuring very large white sharks, resides in the southern hemisphere during a 3-6 month shark diving season.

Stay tuned and expect a very Happy New Year.

Video courtesy of Richard Theiss RTSea Productions.

Shark Conservation Coverage - Al Jazeera

Surprising and in depth front line coverage of the shark situation in Palau, recently declared a shark sanctuary. As we have said many times in the past shark tourism is a viable bridge solution to sustianable fisheries. When local and regional fishermen have the financial incentive to save sharks they are more than likely to push back against outside fisheries.

Bull Shark Diving in Cuba - Report

From the always interesting Team Sharkbait Blog, comes a quick report from Cuba and bull shark diving adventures in Santa Lucia.

Blog readers here at UT will recognise the name and this site from several of our posts involving the cardinal rule of bull shark encounters...never wear a Speedo.

In fact Speedos are just not considered official shark diving gear at all -anywhere.

Fortunately since 2004 the Santa Lucia bull shark site has matured and Team Sharkbite had a great time:

"One of the most breath taking moments we had in the holiday was the opportunity to go scuba diving with bull-sharks. As we were down 25 meters below the surface at a location called La Boca, it was a marvel to look at the bull sharks being hand fed by the diving master. Of course it’s even better to have seen them in their natural environment, without the help of a human touch… But I think wikipedia also describes the bull sharks as dangerous to humans, so for me this was more than a good chance to see them really close. When I write really close I’m talking about within arm’s reach, but I think ‘don’t touch’ had the upper hand in my mind."

Complete Post.

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:

Whale Sharks - The Holbox Papers

In depth industry papers on shark tourism are a must read. Isla Holbox in Mexico has rapidly become a test bed for sustainable tourism with sharks. A new paper is now out.

Tourism Abstract

The whale shark, Rhincodon typus, is the world's largest fish and forms predictable seasonal aggregations at several locations worldwide, which has led to an explosion in whale shark tourism since the early 1990’s. Since 2002, Holbox has established itself as a gateway to the largest known predictable aggregations of whale sharks in the world. It has also experienced the largest growth in terms of visitation and number of licensed tour operators creating an industry worth approximately US$2.72 million in 2008. This rapid growth, along with the whale shark’s listing on the IUCN’s Red List of Endangered Species has led to concerns of the industry’s sustainability in the long-term.

This study was initiated to understand the sustainability of Holbox’s whale shark tourism industry from a social and economic perspective. Tour participants were surveyed regarding their overall satisfaction with their experience, as well as their knowledge of, and compliance with, the interaction regulations. Eighty-five percent of participants were day tourists from mass tourism destinations like Cancun and Playa del Carmen. Approximately thirty percent of the economic gain from the activity is derived off the Island, while on-Island income goes dominantly to two large vertically-integrated operators who are able to bring in visitors directly from the mainland.

Overall, participants experienced high levels of satisfaction but found crowding to be a problem with thirty-three percent dissatisfied with the number of boats. Furthermore, the language barrier between the guides and the tourists resulted in a misunderstanding of the interaction regulations in place to protect the whale sharks and tourists and resulted in a high level of contact with the sharks. The outputs of this study will help inform the future sustainability of the industry, as this relies not only on a returning, healthy population of whale sharks, but also on a satisfied customer base.

Link to report.

Sea Monsters-This Ain't No Unicorn Shark Kids!

We love our blog, especially on days like these.

Today's news, sent into to us by blog reader Dave Harper, is from the Jersey shore-some sort of beaked half pit bull half...WTF!?

We're not exactly sure what this thing is but the image alone is enough to keep us up at night. You just gotta zoom in on the head for that extra creep factor.

Oh, and by the way, if you think this could not possibly wash ashore "as is" we'll remind you of the crazy Unicorn Shark we have been blogging about for the past three months.

The ocean is a scary place kids, always swim faster than your buddy.

Cool Dive Website of the Week

You probably need to go online today and see this one if you dive, like to dive, know someone who dives or care about diving in general.

The sites got a great dive community, nice divers, and in depth dive site info.

Webmaster Greg has things running smoothly and updates on a regular basis. Cool features as well.

Dive in.