Dolphins and Hammers

Im going to keep it short this week. 18 guests and the crew is getting smaller, so the work gets a little harder but its still cool. The group this week have been fun and the diving has been incredible. There is a great need for a small crew such as ours to have cohesion and a sense of humour to allow the fun and excitement of diving to pass off onto the passengers, that sounds cheesy when you read it back.  Unfortunately im not sure this crew has what it takes right now but its early days.

I was passing on my small knowledge of drilling to our new drill team from club med this week. In return one of their instructors told me about a dive site called “The Great Cut”. I wont go into too much detail but the site is awe inspiring and truly rivals some of my favourite sites from Egypt such as “The Canyon” and “The Blue Hole” (those of you that know what they are will under stand, those who don’t, buy me a beer and I’ll tell you).

We completed one dive at conception island, I had to return to the water to recover the mooring from the bottom and I was joined by a bottle nosed dolphin. He watched on as I swam to the bottom and released the shackle, clearly wanting to play. One of the crew members darted around in the zodiac above and gave him some exercise and a show for the passengers. I hung on the line for a while before surfacing and he just looked me in the eye, not nervous but interested. I broke the surface to help recover the buoy and when I looked down he was gone.

I had some great dives this week and they were all relatively deep. I was sure I spotted a hammer head shark but was not 100%, I was sure the narcosis was to blame. The next dive the passengers surface, elated they had all seen a Hammer Head!! I was happy because this made me feel sure I had spotted one, but I had no evidence. Sure enough the next dive we were once again visited by these notoriously shy creatures. I was blown away, when I told the boys from club med they said it was not uncommon to see them this time of year but the sightings were getting fewer.

I still had no evidence, I decided to take my camera on the next dive but I knew this would push the superstitious balance against me. I descended to around 30 meters ( hammers love deep water) followed by two of the passengers, both experienced cave divers. We battled against a strong current for about 20 minutes and admitted defeat. I turned to the diver next to me and gave the signal to turn, looking forward one last time. I looked round to our route back along the wall and there in the distance was the faint shimmer of a shark. I stared at it hoping that it was and its was!!! I glanced back at the other diver, when he finally looked at me a signalled and I watched as his eyes light up. We both look over to see a huge 8ft Hammer heading straight for us and he was not stopping. My breathing went through the roof, after I realised what was happening I pointed the camera at him and just kept hitting the shutter button. The most beautiful shark swan right up to us and casually swam past, barley batting an eye lid at the vicious current we had battled to be there. He strolled off into the distance and the diver next to me looked back with an elated face, I was so happy, the rest of the dive I just lay back and let the current take me to the boat. I got the photo I was after.