MikeBrum.com

This is not a post topic that I would use lightly. Today was, in fact, awesome. Not just normal awesome, as some days are… but so awesome as to warrant the use of an exclaimation point after the proclaimation of the stated awesomeness. Also worth noting is the “holy crap” that’s used to state my almost-disbelief at the degree of awesome that today was…. and I bore witness to the whole thing!

First, I want to say that we dove no less than 6 wrecks today. Maybe plus or minus one or two pending what qualifies as a “wreck” in people’s books and if some debris was part of the wreck we were diving or some other piece of sunken something. Surprisingly, it’s sometimes hard to tell.

The first 3 were at our first dive site, located relatively close together. I believe the site was called Steel Gardens. The second dive site had two wrecks. Well, I guess one is more of a “movie prop” than a true wreck. The true wreck is called The Tears of Allah and is featured in the James Bond film Never Say Never Again. The faux wreck is the scaffolding that’s left behind from the vulcan bomber from Thunderball – another Bond flick for those not familiar. I think the site is commonly referred to as “the Bond wrecks” by most people.

Our afternoon dives were for the shark feeding dive. This consists of one “pre-shark dive” where there’s no bait in the water at all. This lets us observe the sharks in a more natural environment because they’re just hanging out being sharks. You could see the black outlines from the surface before we got in the water. This was definitely freaky at first. After a quick decent, I really didn’t feel threatened at all. I was hyper aware of the fact that there were sharks around – they were pretty much always in eyesite – but they never made you feel like you were dinner. The shark feed itself was an altogether unique experience. Super fun – super exciting – and beyond surreal. There were at least 30 Caribbean Reef Sharks in a really tiny area – that was shared with 9 divers and what felt like twice as many yellow tail snapper. I’d recommend this dive to anyone that’s got their certification and isn’t going to poop themselves at the idea of sharks being in the water when they’re in the water. I have a TON of photos that I need to go through and process. There should actually be a few worth keeping and maybe printing!

The pre-shark dive was done at the Ray of Hope wreck. It was a normal wreck dive – just with a ton of sharks around. We briefly skirted a wall and made our way back to the wreck before ascending the line to the boat… all with sharks around us. The shark feed itself was done on the bow of the Ray of Hope – which is something that apparently isn’t done all that often. Due to some filming being done at the normal shark feed site, we were “bumped” into this semi-exclusive location. If you saw the Mythbusters 2nd Shark Week special where they did a night dive to test shark’s aggressiveness at night, this is the same location.

I have a ton of photos to dig though and I’m struggling to keep my eyes open. Four dives and countless hours on boats in the sun can really wear you out. It doesn’t help that some rougher seas and winds blew in this afternoon and we spent much of the boat time during the last two dives just keeping from falling. Since the first part of our trip has seen excellent weather, I’m not going to complain too much.

Hopefully that begins to describe the degree of awesomeness that today has been.