Cruising around in the waters of Kimbe Bay off the coast of West New Britain, Papua New Guinea, our dive boat had brought us close to some of the world’s best dive sites. The dive we had all been waiting for was just about to begin.
During our previous travels, we had already participated to a few shark feeding dives but this one was going to be different, very different…
The usual block of chumsicle (frozen bits and pieces of fish) was anchored, hanging in open sea at about 40 feet. So far so good. But what was different with this shark dive was that the divers were not line up safely with their backs to a reef wall. No siree! This time, the divers were to hang, neutrally boyant, in mid water while the sharks darted between them to and from the chumsicle. Wohaa ! About a dozen sharks, 6 to 8 footers, were expected to feed with frenzy. The divemaster had been very strict : remain neutrally boyant, cross your arms, no finning and stay put until the action is over.
And action there was! I never felt anything like it – Electricity in the sea. I hung at a healthy 30 ft from the chumsicle but was still in the heart of the frenzy. The sharks were so excited, they torpedoed between divers and suddently shifted direction… I never held my arms so tightly during a dive. The feeding lasted a good 20 minutes. Once it quieted down, six to seven sharks were still around cruising for left overs. The dive master gave the signal to swim freely again and we slowly, very slowly started to glide along with sharks by our side… checking us out and darting off again. Picture yourself in a three dimensional environment… Sharks come up to you from the right, the left, under, above… Action, we wanted, action, we got. You could be looking to your left at a distant shark, turn to the right and there is one, right next to you, within arms reach with food still hanging from its teeth.
This was indeed a truly different dive…