TIGER SHARKS AND GREAT HAMMERHEADS
November 28 - December 4, 2020
These are my journal notes from our final trip of the season. Tiger Beach and Bimini Island, Bahamas for tigers and great hammerheads.

November 28, 2020 - At the airport for our final SDM trip of 2020. We had to cancel most of them, but happy we managed to sneak in 11 trips this year, which was good. It was such a tough year, but super eye-opening, because we lost so much of our income. During the lockdown, I spent the year working with my dad and brother, and thankfully I had that to help us out. If not, it would have been a more challenging year. So I am forever grateful to them and can never repay them for this help I have received.

So it feels really good to be able to run this trip, especially for our friends who have been trapped at home all year. Can’t wait to get out there.

November 29, 2020 -Day one at tiger beach. What a beautiful crossing. Super happy with our weather from the first day. We did two dives today. The first was at Tiger Chain, and we had one nurse shark. The second was at Fish tales, and we arrived at slack tide, and oh damn, what a dive, we had three tigers, Dirty girl, Maui, and one other tiger I did not know. There was no current, and the dive turned into a shit show, with many exciting moments. A bit too exciting for my taste. The sand would get stirred up and hover there, clouding up the water, making it hard to see everyone in the water. Dirty girl was up to her old habits of scaring the crap out of people. She kept swimming up to divers trying to find the box, and it was intense. We spent most of our time following her around to make sure she did not misbehave. Me and Ryan (Ryan was a safety diver on this dive) were emotionally exhausted after following Dirty girl around the whole dive. Ha, of course, everyone got out of the water, excited, and fired up for the rest of the week. Happy everyone was happy, but I was shot. lol

November 30, 2020 - Well, the calm, perfect water are gone, we woke up to a big swelling ocean. We motored over to Fishtales, and managed to pull off one dive. We did get two tigers, Freckles and Maui both showed up, but the sand was pretty busy getting kicked up due to the swells. So despite having good visibility, it was a challenging dive due to the waves. The easy part was having two polite veteran tigers there, which made my life less stressful than yesterday's dive. After the dive, I recommended that we get out of there and lee up for the rest of the day. The group was fine with the decision. It was tough getting back on the boat after the dive. Safety was an issue.

December 1, 2020 - It is December, so wild the year is almost over… wow! We are leaving Tiger Beach this evening. We spent four days here, and we lost one day of the four. We managed tigers every day, though, which was good. Five different tiger sharks; Maui, Freckles, Jitterbug, Dirty Girl, and some tiger I did not know. We also had a bull shark hanging around the whole time, a big female; we dubbed Fireball. She was getting brave and coming in close and even banging around on the bait box on the first dive of the morning.

We also managed to sneak in a night dive before we left, - now that was a lot of fun. It started out as a dusk dive with everyone joining in, but by the end there were only a few divers left…so strange how that happens? Lol, I know that the night dives with tigers are not for everyone, but they really are a lot of fun and great opportunities to get unique images.

We are Bimini bound right now with two days left of this trip. Going for a day and a half of great hammerheads and then trying to find dolphins to swim with, looking forward to a great end to our trip.

December 2, 2020 - We are in Bimini, and we had a good day with two great hammerheads and two juvenile tiger sharks. That was a pleasant surprise—super cute tigers. I didn’t play with them, but I should have. I ended up on the bait box for a few minutes at the end of the dive, made a stupid ass mistake, and got nailed by a hammerhead. I tried to grab a falling tooth off the shark, and I ended up getting my middle finger snagged by the shark. Foolish foolish foolish. I should know better, but I did it anyway. It has been a long while since I have been bit, and the shark taught me to remember to respect them. I paid the price for that.

Tomorrow is our last day. It felt like this trip flew by, which is the sign of a good trip.

December 5, 2020 - On my way home, it was a great trip this week. We did lose one day to weather, but we still managed to pull off some fantastic dives. Lots of tigers and great hammerhead encounters, with bull sharks coming in every once in a while. Three marquee species always makes for great moments. It was fun hanging out with everyone, such a good time and great for laughs. Overall everyone was happy, lots of sharks, and everyone is going home safe, and that’s all I can ask for.

We looked for dolphins as we motored away from Bimini but did not find any. Oh well, either way it was a perfect trip.

My thanks go out to our crazy band of misfit toys who joined us out there, love you guys!