Blackbeard's - The Shark Dive

The next dive started with an extensive safety brief.

We were all to enter the water and rapidly descend to the wreck of the Bahamian ship Henry Smith and gather around a spot on the railing.

As we descended, sharks could be seen circling.

That's because it was time for the shark feeding dive.

Once we were arranged along the rail, the chumsicle was lowered from the boat and placed above us on the deck. 

The chumsicle is a bunch of herring parts frozen in a 5-gallon bucket mold and the attached to a chain.

With the chumsicle in the water, a swirling mass of sharks and other fish swirled around and had at it.

A friend I made on the boat, Steve, an English tech diver, took a cool video:

Bahamas - December 2023 from Scubasteve#* on Vimeo.

After the feeding frenzy subsided, and the chumsicle was devoured, quite a few sharks hung around for pictures.

Including this guy, who swam at me for a close-up:

 Also a shark named Finnegan hung around.

You can see why he's named Finnegan.

They think he lost his fin to a boat prop, and he's a readily identifiable regular at the shark feeding events.

The sharks had no issues swimming closely by the divers:

The sharks, oceanic reef sharks, were rather chill and curious about us, but not aggressive.  

That was one of the most thrilling dives I've ever done.

An awesome shark-filled dive of 43 minutes with an average depth of 44 feet, and a max depth of 58 feet.