Bull shark dive? What’s that? – It all started within my first month of diving in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. I had landed my very first job as a diving instructor at a dive center in the Riviera Maya. I was so happy and excited to be finally living my dream and ready to enjoy the good life. I have to say that at the age of 21 I was perhaps a bit naive and hadn’t truly done my research into the area I would be doing most of my daily dives.
An Unexpected Encounter
One of my first ever shark encounters was on a reef called Tortugas (turtles in Spanish), this shark just so happened to be a bull shark, a fairly large species, not particularly something I wanted to see on my first encounter. Luckily, I wasn’t guiding the dive but following to learn the dive site and felt confident diving together with a fellow professional who had much more experience in this area.
This beautiful female bull shark surprised us after about 30 minutes, she came round to have a look and disappeared again, at that moment my heart started pounding double the speed and for the rest of the dive I was watching my back in a rather paranoid manner. I may have forgotten to mention that I, like many people, grew up with a phobia of sharks. On that dive, I learned that my phobia was still very real and that I would need to work on it if I wanted to keep my job. Never did I believe I would be doing a bull shark dive in Mexico.
A Surprising Shark Dive
That afternoon, our dive center leader informed me that the bull shark seasons was starting soon and that I along with my colleagues would be guiding the twice-weekly bull shark dive.
I am not sure she recognized the panic in my eyes as she told me this, or she may have thought twice about sending me off to guide the dive with guests. I was given a few pointers and told what I should mention in the briefing and was sent along my way.
The morning of the bull shark dive arrived, I turned up at work a bit of a wreck, my stomach was doing strange things and I could hardly eat. I was trembling during my briefing which was ironic as I was telling everyone that there was no need to be frightened and that the important thing was to remain calm throughout the dive.
Once at the bull shark dive site, we took the backward roll plunge into “Jardines Deep”. As we began our descent, I made out dark shapes circling below, we reached the sandy bottom at 25 meters/ , all knelt down in the sand and let the show commence. After the first few minutes I didn’t even notice the sharks anymore although they were coming in closer and closer, sometimes just a couple of metres away before turning, but I was too busy checking my guests were ok to notice.
Comfort through Repetition
After a few of such dives, the shark dives got easier and easier and I was more and more comfortable and confident around the sharks. It got to the point where I was not respecting them for the wild animal that they are and went against my own safety briefings and guidance, of remaining still and seated on the bottom. I started to swim around with the sharks and get closer and closer to them, rather than waiting for them to come to me.
There were a few shallower dive sites near Jardines Deep that we used to visit with our students on try dives and here is where me and some of my colleagues started to attempt to attract the sharks using a plastic water bottle and cracking it under the water to cause vibrations, thus attracting the sharks. This worked successfully about 60% of the time and our novice divers had the dive (fright) of their life!
Although I didn’t realize it yet, I had started to lose respect for them.
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Respect Lost, Respect Gained
Sharks are wild animals, this means that they are not used to humans, nor are they trained and they can behave erratically, defensively, or aggressively. I was about to learn that the hard way, with a very important lesson. The sharks had not been showing up at the bull shark point for several weeks, putting a stop to our shark dives. During that period I had encountered them a few times at a dive site further along the coast in the opposite direction. As usual, I had also implied here the use of the water bottle to attract them closer to our dive group.
I had been diving with two guests for the whole week who had come over especially to see bull sharks, they were quite disappointed to hear that they weren’t around. I spoke with my dive boss and organised a dive trip for us to go to Tortugas Reef, where I had spotted them a few times. I informed the guests that during said dive I aimed to attract the sharks using the water bottle technique and that if we were lucky we might see one or two bull sharks.
Bring on the Bull Sharks
We jumped from the boat and descended, during the descent I already started to crack the bottle and continued to do this throughout the first 20 minutes of the dive. The first bull shark made an appearance in the distance and then promptly swam away. The three of us started whooping through our regulators and high-fiving each other under the water. Shortly after, two more sharks came close and circled around our group, they then disappeared into the blue, again we celebrated under the water and couldn’t believe our luck, or so we thought.
Getting out of Hand
The bull sharks kept coming back, each time one more arrived until a total of eight bull sharks were circling our group, and this time they didn’t leave. Three bull sharks came out of their circle and swam in formation directly at our group, it felt like they were staring right into me, telling me to leave.
At that moment, it felt like my heart had stopped, I got as close to the reef as I safely could and made my self as large as possible and just waited for what might happen. My right hand had gone subconsciously to my dive knife that was strapped to my leg (not that i would have used it) and the other hand was on my secondary regulator ready to use the purge button in an attempt to scare them. The middle shark darted over my head just as it got within touching distance and the other two darted off to the side and suddenly all the sharks had disappeared.
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I used this opportunity to turn to my divers and give them the double thumbs up to end the dive, keeping constant vigilance during the ascent. I looked down and noticed one or two circling but they stayed at the reef and did not ascend with us.
During the safety stop, I noticed that the bull sharks had gone for good. I sent up the surface marker buoy to inform our boat that we were ready to surface and at that moment, I started to laugh hysterically through my regulator. It was at that moment that I realised how relieved I was that everything was ok, and although the sharks taught us an important lesson nothing truly bad happened and we ended the dive safely.
A Positive Ending
Back at the dive center, my dive boss saw me as I got off the boat and brought the equipment back, she saw my face, white as a sheet, and straight away new that something had happened. I was shaking and she took me aside and asked me to retell the dive. My divers informed me that they had enjoyed every minute of the dive due to my calm manner and had assumed that everything was as planned. They did not notice how scared I was and trusted me to bring them up from the dive safely.
Hearing that was bittersweet, as although I was happy that they trusted me and felt safe, I also felt that I had failed them as I had deliberately put them in danger through my own arrogance and ego.
This dive pegged me back a few notches and from then on I took diving and the marine life around me a lot more seriously. I am truly grateful to these sharks for teaching me an important lesson. I still love these amazing creatures, but now I will always respect them for what they are, powerful wild animals.
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