2023 Tiger Sharks and Great Hammerhead Trip Report

Tiger Beach and Bimini Island, Bahamas
November 25 - December 2, 2023

 November 26, 2023 - Day One. We arrived in the Bahamas. It was a decent crossing, not too bad. It was cold as hell in Holly’s bunk (the room I sleep in is called Holly’s bunk, named after the Capt’s daughter). I wanted to close the vents, but I was wrapped up in my blankets like a burrito and it was too cold to get up. So I froze all night.

We arrived at West End to check in with customs.

After customs we decided to go to turtle reef to do a check out dive. It was already towards the end of the day so I told Captain for us to just stay there for the day. Normally there are a lot of turtles around, but they were scarce.

The dives were ok, a bit murky, but easy diving and perfect for everyone to check out their gear, weights and cameras.

On the first dive, I ended up finding a massive logger head with a damaged flipper that was trying to bed down for the night. I saw her swimming, she was about to go under ledge. but when she saw me, she decided to leave, I snapped a couple of shots of her and as soon as she kicked in another gear, I stopped following. I just hovered there, watching her swim off into the distance.

I didn’t pursue. Im really not a fan of swimming after animals, Id prefer that they show some curiosity, and allow the interactions to happen. 

No one else saw a turtle on the dive. They tried to find one, but no luck. Thankfully I had a few proof of life shots, if not they wouldn’t of believed me.

On the second dive, I was looking for turtles sleeping under the ledges and found her again. She was sleeping, tucked in deep under a ledge.

I wanted a photo of her but she was in the shadows and I didn’t want to disturb her.

After a while the rest of our group was swimming by so I called them over to see her. We had not even reached the ledge, when she woke up and crawled out of her cave and swam off. I snapped a few images of her as she was coming out, but again, I did not pursue her. I was happy with the few images I captured. 

Tomorrow morning we head to Tiger Beach and the shark magic begins!

November 27, 2023 - Day Two. Conditions are crap. We arrived at Fish Tales, to white caps everywhere, and a swelly ocean. We would normally leave if conditions were like this, but since we did not dive here yesterday, we decided to at least attempt one dive. 

It was decided not to put any bait in the water. The vis was not the greatest so it made sense. The ocean was crappy.

Due to the swells, the water was murky up with sand and looked smokey.

Despite having no bait in the water, there was still a lot of sharks. Lots of lemons and reef sharks, including the stars of the show. We had five tigers that I could see; including Emma, Freckles and Maui. The other two I did not recognize, but it was nice seeing Emma again. She made it through another year. Such a Big beautiful girl. 

It is official now… I have known this shark for 17 years.

We did one dive and then pulled anchor and headed to calmer waters. Captain wants to maybe try again later today. We will see? I just don’t see conditions getting any better, but who knows?

Either way, it was good getting the guests in with some tigers today. They deserved a good showing. 

Guests were happy, they got see some tigers.

November 28, 2023 - Day Three. We did three dives today. The dive went well, with quite a few passes. 

On the first dive, the visibility was really bad and got worse by the end of the dive. We had a couple of tigers, Freckles and Maui. A couple of our regulars.

Our third dive we had Tequila and another shark I did not know. Both of these sharks had very fresh mating scars on them.

Always good to see. 

We didn’t do any hand feeding on these dives. The visibility was not great and safety would be an issue.

The vis was really bad throughout the dive, but when the sharks are close you do not need good vis. Of course you want good vis, but you do not always get what you want at TB.

I dove for around 50 minutes before I decided to return to the boat… as I was going up, I look down and in flies Emma. Damn it!

I was already coming up. You just can’t get enough photos of Emma.

The day ended with everyone having a nice day. It wasn’t a great day due to the water vis, but it was sharky.

…and sharky waters are always good.

November 29, 2023 - Day Four.  We arrived at Fish Tales pretty early and began the day with a morning dive. It was cloudy and overcast. The sun is going to have some issues burning through it all. But we finally had nice visibility so we jumped in for the first dive of the day.

The tigers were there to greet us. They swam around and made quite a few passes.

I counted four tigers, but Jake said there was 8 or 9 tigers. I believe it, four of them were players; Emma, Jitterbug, Maui, and Tequila. I am sure Freckles was around, and I image a few more tigers were out there.

Eventually another boat arrived. It was a catermeran that operates out of Grand Bahamas, arrived. They anchored up super close to us and took all our sharks. Right in the middle of our dive. Damn it.

They were so close, we could swim to their boat. 

Overall, a decent dive, but I was not happy about losing our sharks.

Captain agreed to drop another bait box in for our next dives. We need some extra encouragement for these guys.

Thankfully it worked!

We dropped in for our second dive and right away we saw a bunch of tigers. Possibly all nine tigers that Jake saw earlier.

This dive was just a swim around, because of the iffy visibility, (it was getting worse as the day progressed).

Despite no hand feeding on the dive, Maui swam up to me and I got to play and roll her a bit which was nice. It felt good to have one of my tigers come in to say hi.

But with all the tigers around, it felt nice not having five plus tigers all trying to eat from the crate in crap vis. It’s fine when its one or two tigers, it gets wild when it’s 7 or 8.

Tiger Beach is evolving and we just have to evolve with it. 

This was our final dive at Tiger Beach, the vis just kept getting worse and worse.

So right now we are on our way to Bimini.

We are going to look for dolphins in the morning and then great hammerheads in the afternoon.

It should be a nice couple of days.

  November 30, 2023 - Day Five. We are in Bimini. We left Tiger Beach pretty early due to bad visibility. Only managing two dives before the vis turned to shit. So we left.

This morning we searched for dolphins but had no luck. So we went to the hammerhead grounds around 10AM. After about an hour of chumming we got our first hammerhead. A big female, the locals named Gaia. We spent about an hour with her and then a second hammer came in, then a third. A forth was seen, but I didn’t see it. 

Only two stuck around, but that was plenty. We managed three dives with them in perfect conditions. Beautiful flat calm seas with a bright sunny sky, and beautiful blue water. The stuff of dreams. And after the crap water we had at Tiger Beach for the past few days, this was a welcomed change.

The action was non-stop with the hammerheads. They were full on players and very hungry.

Great Hammerheads are art in motion. Visually they are amazing sharks to dive with. Very big, unique looking and super photogenic.

A tiger shark did a fly bye during the dive, it did not stick around, nice to see it though. I didn’t see it, the guests did, and they were happy.

A bull shark from the marina also came in. It was not very confident and stayed in the peripherals.

Over all a good day of diving and a magical sunset to end the day.

In the morning we are going to head out to look for dolphins again. I hope we find them. Fingers crossed. 

December 1, 2023- Day Six. Our final day at sea. We went out looking for dolphins. We found a pair of them, and we tried one jump but it lasted a few seconds before the dolphins swam off. They wanted nothing to do with us sadly. 

So we returned to the great hammerhead grounds.

There was four other boats there already, all chumming for the hammers. I was worried that it might take a while before they showed up.

Thankfully it didn’t take long.

We got hammers in quickly and once they arrived they stayed. By the end we had four hammers. It was an awesome way to end the trip. The water visibility was amazing and the weather was perfection! 

It was magic.

Overall it was a good final trip of the season, a lot of sharks, and we got to dive quite a bit.

Due to the weather it wasn’t a perfect trip, but what trip ever is?

Our guests were happy so I was happy… Can’t ask for more than that.

Bahamas and the sharks do not disappoint!

Until next season!