We like to think of extreme sports as those that involve gravity and humans flying through the air in unnatural ways. But lately scuba diving is looking more and more like a high-risk endeavor, too.
First there was the report of the Australian couple left by their tour operator in shark-infested waters for 19 hours. Then this past weekend we learned about the group of five divers in Indonesia that got pulled away from their wooden boat by a strong rip current, survived 12 hours in shark-infested waters and then landed on the island of Rinca to confront an aggressive Komodo dragon.
An Austrian tourist died on Monday after a shark attack in the waters between Fort Lauderdale and the Bahamas. Markus Groh was out on a shark-spotting trip with Scuba Adventures, which sails seven-day live-aboard cruises out of Riviera Beach, Florida.
Unlike some tour operators, Scuba Adventures doesn't send its divers under in a cage. The outfit's website says:
We regularly encounter tiger sharks from 6-18 feet in length. The giant of the tropical shark world, this awesome predator will sometimes cruise past in bulky silhouette, approaching the baits with fearless purpose, an exhilarating experience!
To insure the best results we will be "chumming" the water with fish and fish parts. Consequently, there will be food in the water at the same time as the divers.
Though the company says it has crew in the water "to insure diver safety," it's apparently going to take a fatality to remind them that there's no stopping a wild shark from doing whatever it wants.
After running all those seasons of The Amazing Race and Survivor, seems like CBS has finally run out of places to film. The upcoming Fans vs. Favorites season of Survivor will return to Palau, where season 10 was shot a few years back. The producers are hoping that we don't catch on by calling it Survivor: Micronesia.
While you know what to expect from the competitors on the show--now in its 16th iteration--you probably don't know as much about the South Pacific archipelago. First and foremost, it's a long way from, well, everywhere, and that keeps tourist traffic relatively light. That said, you can get there from New York in about 26 hours, from Houston in about 20 hours and from Sydney in about 19 hours.
Once you're in the islands, the thing to do--if you're not on a hit reality show--is go scuba diving. The Palau Visitors Authority has a big list of all the local outfitters. You can also check out WWII history: The islands of Peleliu and Angaur are littered with materiel from fierce battles that killed thousands in 1944.
The Diving Equipment and Marketing Association has launched a new initiative--and released a commercial--that they hope will lure you to the sport. DEMA's $1.2 million "Be a Diver" campaign is the biggest, most expensive program so far to encourage more people to become certified scuba divers. Should be a useful skill when global warming one day leads to Biblical floods!
The campaign's main goal, of course, isn't just to up the number of certified divers, but to increase the sale of scuba-related supplies. Though the campaign promises info on diving education and destinations, DEMA also wants you to try out all sorts of fancy, must-have scuba gear at its traveling road show. This past weekend, for example, they set up a shallow swimming pool at the Adventures in Travel Expo in NYC.
We're still waiting to see what the full "Be a Diver" website will look like. When we checked in for a preview earlier this morning, the new site was still unavailable. Definitely not a good way to kick off a campaign.
So hunting for 844-pound sharks is too extreme for you? And you don't feel like pioneering the Iraqi shark fishing industry? Then you might want to reconsider your trip to Mexico's Isla Guadalupe with SharkDiver.com.
Passengers and crew on a recent excursion got plenty of action when they witnessed a great white attack a fur seal, says dive master Luke Tipple:
We were in the middle of cage diving operations on the back deck of the MV Islander when all of a sudden a 6 foot geyser of black foam and red blood erupted 50 yards from our position.
While the boys at Shark Diver have been working these waters for years, a surface attack like this surprised even them.
Of course, there's no guarantee you'll see great whites on any particular trip, but Shark Diver CEO Patric Douglas says the odds are good, especially in the winter months:
We have research data showing these sharks actively stalking the smaller Guadalupe fur seals early in the shark season. By November these pups are quite big and begin to play offshore, which is the equivalent of ringing the dinner bell for larger female whites.
As it turns out, San Francisco isn't the only place offering shark tours. Calypso Star Charter out of Port Lincoln, Australia, offers one- and multi-day cage-diving-with-great-whites trips to the Neptune Islands--where Wikipedia says Spielberg filmed part of Jaws. Yikes.
After a two-and-a-half hour boat ride to the islands, you'll jump into a cage before being lowered to your doom see the sharks. With visibility around 60 feet, you'll want to take along a waterproof camera to snap some super-clear underwater shots. The one-day trip--which costs $310--takes about eight hours, so you'll be back in time to tell your harrowing tales of the deep at the bars in Port Lincoln.
Great White Adventures runs 1-day shark-spotting expeditions from the San Francisco Bay Area (Emeryville) to Southeast Farallon Island, 26 miles off the coast of San Francisco. Packages come in two flavors: "Cage Diver" and "Topside Observer." The first, as you might guess, includes a cage dive into the murky waters of the Pacific, so that you might get up close and personal with the beasts. At $775 per person, it's quite an investment.
As a "Topside Observer," ($375) you'll stay dry but still get to ooh and ahh at delightful natural phenomena like bloody attacks on seals. Trips run only for a limited time between September and November, but planning now isn't a bad idea, as some days are already sold out. Don't count on 'em letting you massage a shark as demonstrated above. We're not sure where the picture's from, but we do know it's awesome.
The OC isn't the only place to go urban SCUBA diving. If you're jetting down to Miami to try overrated restaurants, build in some time to scoot south to Key Largo and John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park. Best known as the country's first underwater park, it also has easy diving and snorkeling trips.
Most dives are in the 30-45 feet range, so there's plenty of time to poke around the reefs. (Shallower dives mean more bottom time.) The mandatory dive/snorkel site is Key Largo Dry Rocks, where a Rio-style Christ statue swims with the fishes. More advanced divers will want to check out two sunken Coast Guard cutters complete with swim-throughs. There are plenty of independent dive shops in Key Largo who can take you out, or stick with the park concessionaire.
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by DanielR
