Lobster, No Lobster. Yes Lobster

After the shark feed we dove Lobster No Lobster.

Did you know that lobsters migrate?  They do, and neither European nor African swallows are involved.

Jacques Cousteau named this site because on one dive he found this reef just teeming with lobster. The next time he dove it there wasn't a lobster to be found.

Yes Lobster do indeed move around and migrate. 

We first dove Lobster No Lobster during the day and didn't see a single lobster.

There was a rather healthy reef system there.

 And smiling fish

 

There were also some quite large Lion fish.

 

Each spine on a lion fish is venomous and if you touch it, it hurts, a lot. So avoiding these invasive species is a really good idea, and there are unfortunately quite a few of them around.

 No lobster in sight.

Still a nice dive. 

The night dive however did have lobster.

Big. Lobster.

 

And a big Crab:

And a tiny Stingray

 

And best of all, a tiny and cute Octopus!

First time seeing an Octopus in the wild.  Very cool. 

That was a night dive for the books, we just kept finding cool creatures.

Day Dive: 44 minutes, average depth 27 feet, and a max depth of 32 feet.

Night dive:  1 hour, average depth 24 feet, and a max depth of 31 feet. 

Shark Dive

The highlight of the Blackbeard's trip is the Shark Feeding Dive.

After seeing some sharks while you dive, there's nothing like watching a bunch of them go after a nice chumsicle.

The boat headed to Split Coralhead for the feed. Split Coralhead is one of two shark feeding sites Blackbeards go to, the other being the Henry Smith wreck.

Just like the drift dive, the entire boat of divers gearded up and lined up to jump in together with a negative entry to drop to the bottom as quickly as possible. 

As we dove in, the sharks were already there waiting. 

 All the divers sat or knelt on a circle and then the chumsicle was brought out.

 

With only four sharks hanging out to be taking care of busienss, the shark feed lasted a long time. it was interesting that only four showed up, normally it's about a dozen.

They got to eat well. 

 

This made the chumsicle last awhile, and even split apart and fall to the ocean floor and the sharks really chowed down on it.

 

This had the sharks get nice and close. 

The expression on this yellow snapper's face as the shark was close behind was like "Dude, I'm outta here!"

 A very enjoyable dive.

It's always an experience seeing eye to eye with sharks.

Seriously eye to eye.

 Yep, that one came rather close.

Dive time of 1 hour and 2 minutes, the longest shark dive I've had yet, with an average depth of 49 feet with a 56 foot max. 

Blackbeard's Recap 6 -The Last and Best Day - Part 1 -The Dive At Lobster No Lobster

The last day of diving was both sad as it was the last day of diving, and amazing at the same time.

We got up to a fantastic breakfast as usual, and then headed to the Lobster No Lobster dive site.

It's named Lobster No Lobster as it is the site where Jacques Cousteau learned that Lobsters migrate (without the help of either European or African Swallows). 

They do go at times  en masse from reef to reef, hence the first dive he did at this particular reef had a ton of lobster, and on a return dive a few days later he found it had none.  He later saw a lobster migration as it happened, but he did not confirm or deny that the lobsters were banging coconuts together that they had gripped in their claws as they migrated.

On our dive we did indeed find lobster, and real big ones too:

This lobster actually turned and then used his antennae to smack Gio on his head as he got close to it.

Quite a few reef fish around to enjoy looking at, but then the main even soon arrived.

As you can see in the video, I got some up close face-time with an inquisitive Caribbean Reef Shark.  It also startled a few other divers as you can see in the video near the end.

He came close enough on multiple passes that I could've Booped the Snoot, but happily, no snoots were booped in the making of this video.

The shark was rather chill and was content to make quite a few passes checking things out. Two other sharks were also frolicking about the area as well. The idea when a shark comes to check you out is to keep your cool, maintain eye contact, don't try and swim rapidly away from an approaching shark or make any panicked movements. You should be ready to put something like your fins or camera between you and the shark should that be necessary, in this case it was not.

This extended shark encounter made for a fantastic first dive of the last day, and a highlight of the entire trip.

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.

Diving In For Something A Little Different

This last weekend, as Delta had held a seat sale that I had jumped on, I flew to Ft. Myers, Florida and then drove an hour up to Venice and arrived after midnight Saturday.

Sunday, the next morning I was up bright and early and headed to the dock to get on a boat at 7 am run by Venice Dive Center. It was Shark-Tooth diving time. They've got a nice roomy boat and they offer a 2 dives per day trip. The only downside with them is you have to bring your own weights so I lugged 10lbs of lead through the airport which is kinda dumb.

We headed out to the fossil grounds and soon I was doing a giant stride entry off the stern of the boat and into chilly 71 degree water with 6 feet of visibility or less.

Monday, I got up and went to the meeting spot for Aquanutz Dive Charters.  They offer a 3 dives per trip and provide weights,  They sadly had no openings on Sunday. Aquanutz has a smaller six-pack boat so you don't do a giant stride off the stern, you do a back roll off the side of the boat into the water.

Do you know why divers do a back roll off a boat?  Because if they did a front roll, they would land in the boat and bang their heads.

So I did 5 dives in 2 days.  The water temp was 71 degrees F, so it did get a tad chilly. Bottom time was anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour per dive for me.

Sunday, the water was pretty choppy but not a big deal except it made getting back in the boat a fair bit of work.  Visibility was about 6 feet and mucky.  Dives were to 30 feet or so.    Monday it was less choppy but visibility was still low and there was still a fair bit of current.

I sadly didn't find any Megalodon teeth, but did find a fossilized Lemon Shark tooth and a lot of fossilized bones - Dugong (ancient manatees) and fossilized turtle shell. Still neat and fun diving. A few fish but mainly mud and current was moving pretty good.

I also inadvertently almost petted a stingray as I was searching for fossils.  He was hidden on the bottom in the muck and as I went near him he jumped up, I jumped in response.  We both agreed that we startled each other and would mutually go on our separate ways without any further ruckus.

After the dives following a recommendation, I headed to Nokomo's Sunset Hut for a great lunch.  A blackberry Jack Daniels tiki drink and a Grouper sandwich really hit the spot.

Great restaurant, great service, and one heckuva nice view.

Monday I again got up early and  headed out with Aquanutz.  It was a fun boat with quite a few neat people on board. They also had some spare neoprene hooded vests to go around, and I put one on top of my wetsuit and was much more comfy for the dives.

Visibility was again about 6 feet or less, but less choppy. 

Quite a few more fish to see at these dive spots, including on the last dive a huge Grouper (bigger than your head in size) hanging out by the anchor line.

Sadly while all the experienced divers found some great Meg teeth, the two newbies on board, myself and another fellow, both didn't find any. We were, as the captain said, Megless in Seattle. Apparently it is hard for newbies to find them, but once you've found one your brain knows what to look for and you then find more a lot more easily.

On the upside on these dives, I found a Bullshark tooth, whale ear bones (they're rather neat), more dugong bones and a big whale bone.

I also came across some large fossilized sand dollars. These are each slightly larger than the size of a teacup saucer.  Kinda neat.  Also neat they survived the trip back to Michigan. The regular smaller sand dollars tend to disintegrate as you ascend from depth as they are a lot more fragile.

So sadly, no Meg teeth for me. Other folks on the Aquanutz charter did find some real beauties including one that was 4.5 inches in size, meaning the Meg it belonged to was around 45-feet long!

I then headed back to the hotel, washed the gear and hung it to dry and did some work until late, then ate at the hotel restaurant.

Tuesday, I again worked at the hotel until it was checkout time, checked out of the hotel, drove back to the airport and dropped off the rental car and then worked at the airport until it was time to leave.

TSA at Ft. Myers Airport was both the nicest and most helpful bunch of TSA people I've ever seen.   My artificial hip, as I set off the metal detector with it, now gets me fun with the x-ray machine for screening every time now.  They were cool about it, and actually listened when I told them that would happen and so they routed me right to the scanner rather than wasting everyone's time by first beeping at the metal detector. They were fine with the bones and sand dollars in my carry-on but did search the bag to check out the dive computer and regulators.

Then I got home around 11:30 pm to 43 degree weather after enjoying the 80s for the past few days, and had court Wednesday morning nice and early.

In short, it was a great experience and I need to keep looking for Delta seat sales to do that again in the future.  Delta was perfectly on time and offered nice fights with great service on board. I will find some Meg teeth eventually and the fun of those dives and the thrill of the hunt is still there, even if I didn't find any.

Surveys Say That Most Great Whites Prefer Free Range Organic

But some won't mind a caged snack every now and then.

The Guardian: Great white smashes through shark cage during diving trip – video

That's one of the great things about diving the Great Lakes - no Great White sharks.

Teeth Cleaning

The Shark Teeth cleaned up nicely.

The before pictures show them covered with a pink coral coating.

A day-long soak in a vinegar bath dissolved the coating, and that which remained could be rubbed off and you can see the bubbles from the reaction of the vinegar with the coral:

The end result:

Quite the difference from how they were found and they cleaned up nicely. The blade faces of the teeth are nice and smooth, and the serrated edge of the Great White's tooth is clearly visible now.

Oh The Shark Has Fossilized Teeth, Dear

On Thursday I drove to Venice Florida to Florida West Scuba and Charters for a shark tooth dive. These shark tooth dives were to be dives 200 and 201 for me.

I had been worried that the charter might be cancelled on account of some storms moving into the area and a thunderstorm the night before, but arriving at the dive shop at 6:30 I was warmly greeted by the staff and assured that the dives were on. After completing the waiver and buying a shark tooth bag I loaded my gear on the boat and got my single tank setup assembled. We had a full boat with 12 divers on board plus the captain and dive master. The charter was well organized and they run a smooth and professional operation.

Venice, Florida is a location famous for its fossilized shark teeth and animal bones. The most prolific bones found are those of the Dugong. The Dugong is an ancient large mammalian ancestor of the manatee, with very dense bones so that it could sink and counter its fat for buoyancy conmtrol, whose main purpose in life seems to have been as a snack for the Megaladons, Great Whites, bull sharks and other shark species in the area. As a result Venice is a home to many amazing fossilized shark teeth and bones.

The boat captain began the dive briefing with the standard safety warnings for the boat then stated that this was a dive that broke all the rules - the visibility was about 6 feet so forget about buddy diving as you'd be face down searching for fossils anyways, everyone would carry a float. he also stated you could touch everything you liked down there in your search for fossils, but he suggested avoiding touching the sea urchins.

So in we went. The water was a warm 75 degrees so I had on a 3/2 mm wetsuit, the charter's aluminum 80 tank and my gear. There was a fair bit of current at the surface so we had to jump off the stern, swim forward to the bow which was facing 180 degrees, descend and continue on the 180 heading so we could return with the current rather than against it.

On the first dive, I decided to not bring the camera and get comfortable in the environment before adding the distractions a camera can bring. I did bring it along on the second dive. The water was warm, the viz not great but there were fossils to be found, not to mention some fish to see. There was also the theme song from Jaws playing in the background during the dive for some reason, and not being able to see beyond 6 feet away on one's own was a very different feeling from my typical team dives. After all, when you get into the ocean you do have the potential for becoming part of the food chain, and not necessarily at the top.

The bottom had a lot of stuff on it, and I started a search pattern for teeth and interesting objects.

the search wasn't easy as the teeth tend to blend in with the bottom clutter and it takes focusing on a small area at a time while being careful to keep your buoyancy and trim above the bottom as you search to avoid a silt cloud destroying your search area.

And there were many sea urchins about to stab the unwary

There were also some neat star fish and other interesting lifeforms on the bottom:

On the dive, quite a few fish would follow me around, either to tease me that I hadn't found a large haul of shark's teeth or to cadge a snack when I pulled up a fossil and raised some particulate in the water, and this guy was particularly persistent, always darting right in front of my mask.

The fish would poke around the spot where a fossil was retrieved, looking for food:

I didn't find any huge Megaladon teeth, but I did find shark teeth!

This one is half of a Great White Shark Tooth, cleaved cleanly in half. At 2 inches in blade length, the shark this came from was around 18-20 feet long. That's one big shark.

This one is a complete bull shark tooth:

I'll clean the pink coral coating off later and we'll see the actual colors of the teeth.

I also found many massive thick and solid Dugon bones, cleaved cleanly through by some massive shark jaws:

These are Dugong rib bones:

Tip of a Dugong rib:

Both dives lasted about 55 minutes and it was a great experience. Florida West Scuba and Charters runs a great charter so I'd highly recommend them if you get a chance to go diving in the area. After the dives we returned to shore and the dive shop to return the tanks and rinse my gear, and of course to buy the required T-Shirt signifying a successful dive. There was a bar conveniently located beside the dive shop and I ordered some fried grouper which was excellent.

Dives 200 and 201 were absolutely excellent. Great weather, warm water and shark's teeth taken as trophies. What could be better than that for a Venice, Florida dive experience?

New and Improved, It's A Hybrid Shark

Say Uncle notes the discovery of Hybrid Sharks.

Personally, I'm waiting on the discovery of plug-in sharks, they get better nautical mileage.

That, and the evolution of sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their frickin' heads.

Now THAT'S a Shark

Surprise catch of 575-pound tiger shark could shatter world record

The picture of the shark is indeed impressive, its bigger than the man that caught it.

Not only is this a very large shark, the feat is more impressive for the equipment used to make the catch:

Brett Sinclair's recent catch of a 575-pound tiger shark is impressive not merely because of the predator's sheer size, but because it was made on fishing line with a breaking strength of only 13 pounds ... aboard a boat that was not much longer than the fearsome beast.

I wonder if anyone aboard on first seeing the shark breach the water said "We're Gonna need a bigger boat".

Just when you thought the only sharks along the Potomac are in Congress.....

Eight-foot shark caught in Potomac River

Fisherman Wily Dean was trying to catch cow-nosed rays in Southern Maryland's Potomac River for a marine biologist this week, but he ended up netting an 8-foot-long bull shark.

This adds new complexity to my plan to dive the World War 2 German U-Boat, U-1105 sunk in the Potomac.

Bull Sharks - Carcharhinus leucas can survive in fresh as well as salt water and some have even (thankfully only very occasionally and rarely) been found in Lake Michigan.

The comments in the linked to article are pretty funny, with quite a few from bleeding heart greenies that would wet themselves if they ever saw a bull shark in person. That is, of course, if they had time to wet themselves before this apex predator showed them what the maritime food chain looks like.

Disagreeing With Something That Eats You - Shark Attack kills Floridian

Shark attacks are quite rare, and combined with their swiftness and sudden attacks without discernable warning tends to shock people's senses, which is why when someone gets killed by a shark its considered newsworthy.

From The Detroit News: Man killed in Fla. shark attack possibly swarmed

There was blood in the water, the sharks were circling and a grievously hurt Stephen Schafer -- his thigh gashed and his hand mauled -- was screaming in pain by the time the lifeguard reached him.

The lifeguard pulled Schafer onto his rescue board, but his cries quieted as he drifted in and out of consciousness.

He would soon be dead, marking the first deadly shark attack in Florida in five years, and perhaps a rare instance of a lethal attack by a swarm of sharks.

Schafer, 38, was attacked Wednesday afternoon a quarter-mile off South Florida's Atlantic Coast while he was out kiteboarding -- using a large kite-like sail to pull him along the surface on a board strapped to his feet. When the winds lightened and his sail dropped, the Stuart man found himself in the water, surrounded by sharks.

One problem is that on a board and in a dark wetsuit at the surface of the water, some surmise that you as a swimmer look like a seal to a shark and worthy of a test bite.

In any case, note how rare it is - the first lethal attack in Florida in five years, of course that's no consolation to poor Mr. Schafer. Sadly, he fell victim to some very bad luck indeed.

As dangerous as sharks may be, you're in far more danger travelling to or from your dive/swim/surfing/kiteboarding site due to the risk of a vehicular accident than you are in the water itself.

The Mistake of the Diving Attorney

As you've by now read and can read at Scuba Blog, an Attorney was fatally bitten by a shark while diving in the Bahamas on a cage-less shark dive excursion.

He made one fatal mistake.

He forgot to bring his bar card with him on the dive.