Day 11: Shark Day

We had an earlier morning today, had to be at the dive shop by 8 to be briefed for our 2 dive day, the first of which was a dive with a group of female carribean reef sharks with 'Roatan Shark Dive'. We had 11 people sign up from the resort so we were able to take our own boat, cruising around the west tip, seeing about a quarter of the island from the ocean. Noha came along for the ride to snap a few photos and enjoy a snorkel at our second dive site, Mary's place. We stopped at the shop where they run the shark dive for the briefing where we learned the do's and dont's for the interaction.

We would all line up on the sandy bottom against a small reef wall to protect us from any current and keep us contained for the divemaster to maintain. Then we would be allowed to swim with the sharks when they came in (also mentioned the obvioius don't try to pet the sharks and keep your hands closer to your body when shooting pics and video). Only one shark came in at first but near the end there were 4 sharks we were able to swim with. They really are amazing and it does feel like you could reach out and touch them, they are that close. The Reef in this area juts out into the open ocean and provides a natural haven for the sharks. They cruise the deep edge of the reef and have developed a learned behaviour that the divers rattler means there may be a small meal to be had in the shallows of the reef (70' for us air breathers). They do feed them a few fish heads from the bucket.
After about 35 minutes, the sharks swam off and we ascended to review the video footage. Between the three of us we got some great shots of our own so didn't need to spend for a DVD. Our second dive was at Mary's Place, a natural set of 1-3 m wide fisures in the reef spaning from 25' to 120' deep. The fish were very abundant and Vicky got here first group of in focus shots of the barber pole shrimp!
Link to all Photos