2010 Expedition Report - Craig Reynolds Blog

These lucky divers have met the most charismatic, studied, and filmed white sharks on the planet.

For newly minted Shark Diver Craig Reynolds, nothing but his own Great White Blog to recount his adventures this year would do:

Day 4 – TWO BLACK EYES – Knowing that sharks are active feeders at dawn – due to the favourable light conditions it provides for hunting – my cage team volunteers for early morning “shark lookout.” Really, it just sounds like an extra hour for keeners so we’ll take it, thanks. And one hour quickly turns into two.

The sharks are slow to venture up from the bottom for the first while. Their grey topside blends in almost perfectly with the abyss below our feet. The white tips of their flanks appear to be nothing more than small fish from far away. And as your mind starts to play tricks on you, the small fish start to look like White Sharks.

But by the second day, we’ve grown more accustomed to our steel confines.

Gradually, you start to find ways of hooking your feet around the ladder and pivoting your body like a climber, hanging on to a bar with a couple of fingers while the others hold the camera, and leaning with the current instead of against it. Your movements become more efficient as does your breathing that bordered on hyperventilation the previous day. I can only imagine how fast your heart would race if you were outside of the cage.

Sharks incidentally, have thousands of pours that can detect faint electrical impulses produced by moving muscles – like a heart beating for instance. So in a very real sense, they can smell fear. They can also detect Chris who is purposely slapping the water at the top of the cage like wounded prey (or panicked swimmer if you prefer). This is general knowledge for most people I think but the fact is really driven home to me here as I can actually feel the vibrations through my 7mm thick wet suit.

So by now, our cage is earning a reputation for being the monkey cage.

Well, we’re attracting the sharks, right? But can we still say that we are merely observers if we are playing on the shark’s senses? Perhaps we’ve gotten into a bit of a grey area there, but it’s hard to resist considering the reason we’ve come all this way (and paid money) is to see sharks up close. And as the hour wears on, the sharks are getting braver, more interested. Their passes become more frequent and increasingly closer to the cage, to the point where you can actually see into their eyes.

This recalls two distinct memories I have of traveling Australia and New Zealand:

The first was swimming in the ocean with literally hundreds of dolphins. In order to slow down the onrushing pod, we did our best to mimic them, diving underwater using dolphin kicks like you would in a butterfly stroke and making squeaking sounds as best you could. In a moment that lasted probably only a few seconds at best – but seemed like a lot longer – a number of dolphins broke from the pod and began circling me. Far too fast to touch in the open sea, the best I could hope for was to admire them. What I didn’t expect was to actually be able to make eye contact. Without going so far as to call the experience “spiritual” ­– although its probably the closest I’ve come – I very much felt an immediate connection with the mammal just by looking into its eye through my mask. I could tell that it was intelligent. That it was aware of the connection.

In contrast, a visit to the Vic Hislop’s Shark Museum had me looking face-to-face with his 22.5-foot trophy Great White, suspended in a viewing freezer with the jaws gaping open. As I looked at its chilling black eyes – which in retrospect, probably weren’t real eyes at that point – I couldn’t tell the difference between this stuffed shark and the live ones I’d seen on TV. The eyes looked the same dead or alive. Just soulless black discs that could see you, but you couldn’t see inside. Kind of like a creepy two-way surveillance mirror. It freaked me out. I think it was supposed to, considering Hislop was an acclaimed shark hunter down under and took pride in ridding the sea of them.

But here at Guadalupe, 200 miles from any HD TV, I can really see a Great White’s eye up close.

To my surprise, there is actually a bright blue iris in the centre of the eyeball, moving back and forth underneath that seemingly uniform dome. Which apparently is very similar in structure to cats and other nocturnal animals. And as the shark glides by, that blue eye is tracking us. And it, the shark that is, is obviously aware of us watching it.

Which isn’t to say there’s a connection. There isn’t. This is a wild animal doing a drive-by. Taking surveillance of the situation. Doing what sharks do. But in this moment, I’m able to look at and appreciate this mysterious carnivore in a whole new way. It isn’t just a mindless eating machine. It is obviously much more deliberate than most people would ever think.

Great White sharks are naturally cautious and choose their targets carefully.

This I believe is one reason why they circle before moving in for a strike. And when they do, they are more likely to ambush their target, striking them from behind. While you’re looking at the other one I presume.

It likely follows that one of the best ways to discourage a shark attack is to maintain eye contact with it. Unlike other animals that would perceive that as a challenge, the shark prefers to strike unexpectedly. Which may explain why they seem to have become camera shy with us.

Perhaps they perceive the camera as an eye itself or even as a defense mechanism. Because no sooner are they approaching our cage when suddenly they have four cameras jump up in their face. Like a Hollywood celebrity trying to avoid the paparazzi, they react to it by turning away as if recognizing their cover has been blown. It’s just a theory. But it seems to be noticed by at least a couple of people on our dive trip.

But just when you think you’ve learned something about sharks, they break the rule.

By now, there are three or four 10-plus foot sharks circling our cage, coming in from all angles, in waves. One look at some of our amateur video footage just goes to show how hard it is to keep track of them at this point. And they are getting bolder with each pass, coming directly at the cage.

Perhaps they are excited by the noise. Perhaps they grow more confident in greater numbers. But there are no limbs dangling outside of the cage any more. Even holding the bar with a bear hand now becomes a reason for worry as they “test the waters” so to speak.

Not to compare them to a family pet again, but like dogs, sharks have no hands and test their environment by mouthing things. Unfortunately for us, they’re serrated rows of teeth have serious repercussions.

Never the less, being in the safety of the steel cage, we couldn’t ask for anything more than this. Without ever dangling food in front of their pointed snouts, we have managed to be surrounded by the most dominant species in the ocean. And it’s thrilling beyond words.

I feel so lucky. And it’s not even noon yet.