This is the Fourth post in a thread of posts based solely on my facebook posts. If you saw my facebook posts, you already saw anything here.
Here is a link to all my Photos and Videos, on SmugMug. There are multiple albums for you to enjoy.
The question came up, exactly what is happening in these shark videos. We are sitting on the coral outside of a harbor, watching the second most dangerous shark, according to some, search for tuna heads. In this area the fisherman used to clean their fish in the harbor, which brought in tiger sharks, this was less than ideal since children swam in the harbor. So they started doing it outside the harbor, and now they do it for divers. Once you're situated, they dump some fish heads and the dive masters shove the fish heads into some coral formations etc. In one case, there was a tiger shark that picked up a big hunk of coral. About the size of a very big human head. Swam away with it, dropping it when she decided there wasn't enough food on it. Most of the sharks were female, a few were very pregnant. This definitely did not feel safe. They are used to divers, and the dive masters do a good job of keeping the guests from getting eaten, but it was not 100% safe. I'm okay with that..
Link to this video in Smugmug:
Tiger Zoo 1 Video
Link to this video in Smugmug:
Tiger Zoo 2 Video
These are both Sweetlips. The big bright yellow one that reminds me of a Taxi for some reason, is an adult. The lunatic in the video is a juvenile.
Link to this video in Smugmug:
Juvenile Sweetlips Video
Link to this video in Smugmug:
Shark Traffic Video
So I spend a lot of time around animals in and out of the water. Never really got all that scared. Sharks... Sure. Bull sharks, tiger sharks, whatever. Large morray eels, sea snakes, love them all. But on this trip to the Maldives, I've been attacked twice. Three times if you include the batfish that I played with. He bit me, but I knew he didn't have teeth And I was the aggressor. The other one, was this triggerfish. Here he is attacking another diver, and he bit the divers fin. Bit right through the fin. They eat by taking chunks out of the coral. These guys could cause real damage.
But the only time I really got nervous, was during last night's night dive. We came upon a good size tuna. I don't know if the thing was protecting a nest, hunting, had covid or was Rabid or what. But it did not like us or our lights. It kept going after us. At one point, sped at me And banged off my head. Those things are solid. And they have spiky things on them. This guy was big, aggressive, and had teeth. I really was wondering if I was going to get a few new scars. It was fun though. Best part of the dive.
Unfortunately, no one got good video of the Tuna. We were all trying to protect our sensitive parts.
Attack Trigger Fish
Link to this video in Smugmug:
Video 1
Link to this video in Smugmug:
Video 2
https://whereisbobl.smugmug.com/TRAVEL/2022-01-MALDIVES-Scuba/DIVE-VIDS/i-5CpRdhx/A
Sharks, barracuda etc.
Because you can never have too manyshark videos.
Link to this video in Smugmug:
Video
Link to this video in Smugmug:
Video
And so the trip home starts.
6.30am sat here
8.30 pm Friday Boston time
Plan to get home Sunday around 4:00 p.m. unless I stop somewhere on the drive home.
Not quite 48 hours. I consider that a success. Some of that time will be sitting at a beach waiting for the next flight.
....SIR .... Do you have a swiss army knife in this bag ..... Uhhhh, I don't think so, not in THAT bag. .... Meanwhile the bag next to it has a dive knife, a Swiss army knife and who knows what else. They inspect all the bags at once. Later, after checking the luggage, only the carry on is inspected. No Swiss army knife there.
Oh yeah, THAT'S why I travel in the winter.
And one last dive pic, just chill'n on the reef.
