Blue Shark Diving – Rhode Island – August 18, 2009

On Tuesday morning, August 18, 2009, my dive buddy, Beth Dalzell, her husband Wes, their daughter, Jenni Ward and her husband, Nate, our good friend Chris Bain of Somerset, New Jersey and Veronica and I arrived at the docks in Galilee, Rhode Island to board the 46’ Snappa, owned and operated by Captain Charlie Donilon. We were all here to go Blue Shark Diving off the coast of Point Judith, Rhode Island.

This is the third time that Beth and Wes and Veronica and I have done this trip. The first time brought large seas and lots of sharks. The second brought calm seas and only a few sharks. We were hoping that the third time was a charm, especially since Nate and Jenni were out on a family vacation from their home in Santa Cruz, California. Charlie Donilon is a great captain and we really enjoy being on the ocean with him. You can find out more about Charlie and his trips at his web site, SnappaCharters.com.

The boat left the dock at 7:00 am and we motored off shore at 16 knots in calm seas with a light fog. It took about an hour and a half to get out 24 miles. Charlie started a chum slick about a mile or so before we stopped to put the shark cage and the playpen into the water. The playpen is a floating platform that snorkelers can lie on top of and watch the divers and the sharks. As is the case with every wild animal adventure, there is no guarantee of sharks. You do everything that you can to attract them but it doesn’t mean that they will come. Everything was in the water by about 9:00 am and we waited….and waited…and waited. Hours went by and there were no sharks. We were entertained by a birds called Cory’s Shearwater, Calonectris diomedea.

They are very remarkable birds. They feed on fish and mollusks and can dive to 50 feet to catch their dinner. They were feeding on the chum that we were releasing from the Snappa. I was so bored waiting that I took my camera and jumped into the water to try and get a photo of the birds diving after their snacks. I was not lucky today.

Our second treat came as a huge school of Atlantic bottlenose dolphins swam past. They weren’t near enough to get any photos but they were impressive to watch.

Around 1:30 pm, we were all stir crazy when the first blue shark, Prionace glauca, went after our bait.

To entice the sharks, Captain Charlie takes a fish part and loops heavy monofilament through it and ties it to a 1/2” diameter line. The fish part is trailed off the side of the boat to attract the shark. When the shark goes after the bait, our shark wrangler, Veronica would pull the bait back to the boat so that the shark would not get it. We didn’t want them to get full and leave. There were times when the shark would grab the bait and Veronica would have the shark at the gunnel of the boat. Captain Charlie would check the shark and if it was not tagged, he would tag it. He would fill out a shark tagging card with one of our names on it and mail it in. If the shark is caught somewhere and the tag turned in, we will be notified as to where it was caught.

Beth was the first one into the water. She got in so fast that I thought that she had been shot out of a cannon. If only we could get her into the water that fast when she is on our boat. Veronica talked about getting an inflatable shark and towing it behind the boat and yelling “SHARK” to get Beth into the water faster. The rest of us waited to make sure that the shark was not just passing through. About five minutes later, we were rewarded with another (or the same shark). I was in next followed by Chris. Jenni, Nate and Wes decided to snorkel over to the playpen and watch the activities from the surface.

My first impression of the blue shark is how beautiful it is. We all thought the same. The top of their bodies are an iridescent blue and they are very sleek. Beth was in the shark cage and I went in for a minute and decided that with the camera and dual strobe setup that I had, I was not going to get what I wanted in the cage so I exited. Chris came and joined Beth in the cage. Before long, Beth decided to join me outside the cage. For the next hour and fifteen minutes, we had three very cooperative blue sharks.

Around noon time, the wind picked up and so did the seas. This is a mixed blessing. It allows the chum slick to go out faster and attract the sharks. It makes things uncomfortable on the boat as the boat drifts in the swells. It also pulls the cage along. This makes it interesting for underwater photographers who are not in the cage. I would let go of the cage to take a few pictures of the sharks and then I would have to swim my butt off to get back to the cage. Beth was using a point and shoot camera and she knew that she could only take one shot before the shark would be gone. Her swim to the shark cage was usually shorter than mine. I would be able to shoot four or five shots before turning back. Once, I turned back and didn’t see the cage. The visibility was about thirty feet and thankfully, I saw the ends of Beth’s fins and swam really hard to get back. By the end of the hour and fifteen minutes, I was one tired puppy.

Jenni was enjoying the show so much from the playpen with Nate that she forgot about getting into her SCUBA gear and diving down with us. She had no regrets about not diving. Jenni, Nate and Wes got to see more from the playpen than we did underwater. They could watch the action where we were and also watch what happened on the surface with our shark wrangler.

It didn’t take long before I realized that the sharks seemed to like me. They would come up under me and when I realized they were there, they were inches in front of my mask. They bumped me in the back and bumped my camera and strobes. I wasn’t sure why they were doing this. Perhaps it was the whining noise that my strobes give off when recycling. Jenni thought that my strobes looked the same color as the fish bait that Veronica was using and that they thought my strobes might be food. Whatever the case, I had the sharks around me a lot. I was wondering later how many 62 year old guys are doing things like this? Something that happened the next day made me think about this statement. Veronica and I were whale watching off Provincetown, MA the day after the shark dive and I was wearing a t-shirt that had a saying on the back “If you are not living on the edge, you are just taking up space.” A naturalist on the boat looked at me and the back of my shirt and smirked. I am sure that she was thinking “I’ll bet this guy can’t find the edge – no less live on it.” Later I was talking to her about ocean sunfish and happened to mention that I was blue shark diving the day before. I wonder what she thinks of me and the edge now.

The blue sharks seemed to swim a pattern. They would go after the bait and follow it all the way to the boat. Once they didn’t get it, they would swim towards the cage and swim right past Chris and then around the cage towards Beth and finally past me before heading away from us and getting ready for their next pass. Once I recognized the pattern, I could position myself for the next pass. The only thing that changed was how they would show up. Sometimes, they would swim in and appear next to the bait and other times, they would come up right under me and I could feel them scraping across my stomach and chest. That is really weird.

I am usually very good on the amount of time that I can spend underwater on a tank of air. Today, I was swimming so much that I was the first one out of the water. I started to change tanks for another shot at the sharks when Chris came back to boat followed shortly thereafter by Beth. Since no one else planned on going back in and since it was getting close to our time to leave, I decided that it was time to call it a day. I thought that I had a good day and that I would have some photographs that I would be happy with. I never expected to have nearly 100 photos that made me smile.

I think the things that made me smile just as much was the excitement that oozed out of everyone on the boat. We were talking about how neat looking the sharks were and about all the things that happened while we were in the water. The one thing that we missed and it really made me feel stupid was a photo of Veronica, our shark wrangler. She worked really hard to keep the sharks interested. She is our unsung hero. The other thing that made me happy came later in the day when we will all met at the house that Beth and Wes and their family were renting for the week in Rhode Island. After dinner, the laptops came out and we looked at photos taken by Chris, Beth and me. We all got photos that we can be proud of. It doesn’t get much better than that.

On Wednesday morning, Veronica and I headed for Plymouth, Massachusetts for a couple days of whale watching. Chris headed back to New Jersey and Wes and Beth and the rest of the their family (fifteen in all) met us on Wednesday afternoon for the afternoon whale watching trip. That will be in my next post.

To see more photos of blue sharks, visit my Photo Gallery or click here to go direct to the blue shark photos. To see more of the Cory’s Shearwater, click here.

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