Tiger Shark and Great Hammerhead Trip Report 2025
Northern and Bimini, Bahamas
November 29 - December 6, 2025
November 30, 2025
Day 1. We’re finally on our way to the Bahamas.
We left at 8am this morning.
Normally we make the crossing at night around 10pm, but the ocean had other plans.
Last night the swells were 9 - 12 feet, today they’re 5 - 8. Still rough, but survivable.
So we waited.
It’s been a bumpy ride. We won’t reach West End until around 4 - 5pm, which means hours of rolling seas and seasick guests.
When nature is kind, she is gentle. When she’s tough… she roars.
There are times when you simply don’t challenge Mother Nature. She’ll reward you when you face her head-on and make it through. But she won’t shed a tear if you fall on your face while she’s stretching her legs.
We made it across the Gulf Stream and through the worst of the swells. It was tough, we all slept through most of it. We just tucked in tight in our bunks and waited for it all to end.
The ocean has settled, not calm, but calmer. At least we’re not getting tossed around anymore.
3:51pm
Still motoring toward West End, hoping to make it before customs closes.
If they shut down for the day, we’d have to anchor overnight and wait until morning. We want to clear customs today so we can push toward Tiger Beach and be ready to dive first thing tomorrow.
6:00pm
We made it. We’re officially in the Bahamas and cleared customs.
They were kind enough to wait after hours for us, which meant we could leave immediately and start the run toward Tiger Beach.
Tomorrow morning, we dive… Spirits are high and thankful that the adventure can finally begin.
December 1, 2025.
Day Two. We made it!
Our first dive of the day was at Turtle Reef, a simple checkout dive to make sure everyone was weighted correctly, cameras were dialed in, and gear was set.
Visibility was rough and the water was chilly, so we kept it short at about 30 minutes and moved on.
Second dive: Tiger Beach: Fish Tales. From the surface, the visibility looked great, calm blue seas, sunny skies… and a tiger shark waiting for us.
Jitterbug was around.
Jake got the first interaction when he jumped in on snorkel to check the anchor, she was worked up and he had to push her away a couple of times. Classic Jitterbug: mischievous and full of attitude.
When I dropped in to make sure she behaved with the guests, she had already settled down, mellow and aloof again.
The dive itself was nice. We hit it at the tail end of low tide, so the bottom had a bit of haze, but the sharks made up for it.
We had four tigers on this dive: Jitterbug, Tequila, Maui, and one unknown female with a notch in her dorsal.
All well-behaved, slow passes, keeping their distance. No bait box yet, so they were hanging around without showing interest in the divers, exactly how sharks behave when there’s no scent in the water.
That would change on the next dive.
Dive 3 was chaos, the fun kind.
We timed it wrong and ended up dropping in right at slack tide.
The current died, the sand lifted, and we got a full underwater sandstorm that hung in the water column.
To make things even more interesting, the current shift pushed the boat in the opposite direction, so we had to move the guests closer for safety.
Once everyone was repositioned, Jake brought down the bait box and the feed began.
The tigers were on fire, visibility was a mess, sand everywhere, but the guests loved every second of it.
We had five tigers at the start, with four coming in close for the feed. No major scares, just a wild, high-energy dive the way Tiger Beach likes to surprise us.
Dive 4: Dusk/Night Dive.
We dropped in with the setting sun, warm light fading, the water glowing.
A couple of tigers cruised through early, but disappeared into the dark as night settled in. Lemon sharks and plenty of reef life stayed around.
I spent the dive searching for octopus and didn’t find any, but the reef was alive with other creatures. I left the still camera behind and brought only the GoPro, no regrets.
Overall:
Five tiger sharks today, a healthy reef, a chaotic feed, calm seas, and a perfect welcome back to Tiger Beach.
We lost yesterday to weather, but today absolutely made up for it.
To Watch the video report from today, watch the Wild Minute.
December 2, 2025
Day 3. The wind is blowing hard today.
I’m not sure how many knots, but it’s enough to make me hope I actually secured all my wet gear on the top deck last night. If I didn’t… it’s gone.
8:00 a.m.
The water looks nice and blue, so I’m hoping that color holds for the rest of the day. With windy conditions like this, we’re lucky if we get one or two dives in before the weather forces us out.
Still waiting to hear what the captain thinks.
Dive 1 — Fishtales. 5 tigers.
Freckles
Simon
Daisy
Kathy
The Tiger with the notch.
We dropped into a swelly ocean for our first dive.
The currents were running hard, not crazy, but strong enough that once we hit the sand, we had to constantly readjust just to stay positioned.
Tough conditions, but manageable.
The upside?
Strong currents mean perfectly behaved tigers.
With the bait box scent flowing in one steady line, the sharks follow that stream and stay consistent in their approach.
It turned out to be a really good dive.
I spent some time watching the lemon sharks today. They are so cute and their behavior always surprises me.
It’s wild that they choose to sleep right where we are.
Of all the places they could rest, they settle down in the middle of a group of divers, on our shark feed.
At the end of the dive, one of the lemons I recognized from previous trips settled down right next to me.
I reached out and rubbed her back and she immediately swam off, only to loop around and come right back, settling next to me again.
This time, I didn’t touch her. I just sat with her.
She approached me.
She chose to rest beside me.
That was the invitation, not the touch.
Moments like that remind me how much I still learn from these animals.
Overall, a wonderful dive.
Right now, we’re filling tanks, and the captain is deciding whether we’ll attempt another one.
The wind and swells continue to build, and jumping in isn’t the problem, getting out safely is.
Weather Call. The captain decided it wasn’t safe, and it was absolutely the right choice.
The swells were too big to risk it, so we pulled anchor and found a protected spot to hide from the wind and waves.
We spent the afternoon watching movies, editing footage, and chatting. While we were hanging out, nature surprised us with a double rainbow right off the back of the boat.
We stood outside taking photos and soaking it in.
A beautiful, unexpected gift to end a weather-challenged day at sea.
To Watch the video report from today, watch the Wild Minute.
December 3, 2025
Day 4. We woke up to less wind this morning.
There’s still a little swell where we lee’d up for the night, but no whitecaps, a good sign. We still need to motor back to Tiger Beach to see what conditions look like, but hopefully we’ll squeeze in a few more dives today.
7:45 a.m. We’re on our way back to Tiger Beach. The seas are calm, the ride is smooth, and it looks like we’re in for a good day of diving.
One more day here, let’s make it count.
Dive 1. We jumped in for the first dive of the day.
Visibility was a bit silty, but we had four tiger sharks and a steady current. When Jake brought the bait box down, I hopped on it and got to work the tigers again.
It’s been a minute since I’ve fed and danced with these sharks, and it felt really good to reconnect.
Jake working with the tigers.
I stopped feeding a couple of years ago, not because I stopped loving the sharks, but because I lost my passion for the dance. So I stepped back, focused on safety diving and photography, making sure everyone else stayed safe and looked good in their photos.
But today… sitting on the box again… damn, it felt great.
Feeling their energy, reading their body language, moving with them, it all came rushing back.
Dive 2. For the second dive, I went back to safety diving. Finch brought the bait box down.
Almost wish he hadn’t.
The tide shifted, we dropped right into slack water, and the visibility instantly blew up into a sandstorm.
Zero current = zero scent trail = sharks everywhere.
To make things worse, the boys added a couple of pieces of fish that were too fresh for a controlled feed. And the sharks lost their minds.
Every shark at Tiger Beach was on the box, kicking it around, fighting to get at those pieces.
It was madness.
I looked at Finch, signaled to end the dive, and sent everyone back to the boat. Then the two of us stayed behind to try and recover the bait box from a swirling mob of tigers, lemons, and reefs.
It took patience, timing, and a lot of calm. Eventually the sharks settled enough for Finch to feed out the remaining pieces to the tigers one at a time.
We keep the reef sharks and lemons out of the feed because they get too worked up and make the entire dive dangerous. I snapped photos of the craziness, I want to remember this.
We finally got the bait box back under control and surfaced safely.
A wild dive, but we handled it.
While we waited for the visibility to clear up we decided to play with the lemons and reef sharks on the surface. Our guests were trying to photograph over/unders of the animals.
Dive 3. We dropped in around 2 p.m. The visibility was still hazy from the changing tide, with pockets of blue mixed into cloudy bottom water.
Our four tigers came in, and the dive was on. Plenty of reefs and lemons around too, but much more relaxed this time.
We did a long dive on this one, well over an hour, and it was absolute magic.
Guests got incredible shots.
Countless photos were taken.
Everyone walked away with something special.
As the dive went on, the water cleared. By the end, the visibility was perfection. The light was kicking, the sharks were calm, and none of us wanted to leave.
When we finally surfaced, the water looked just as beautiful from above, crystal, glowing, unreal.
Our time at Tiger Beach has come to an end.
We’re packing up and getting ready to make the overnight run to Bimini.
Tomorrow morning… Great hammerheads.
And if we’re lucky…
a morning session with spotted dolphins.
To Watch the video report from today, watch the Tiger Beach Wild Minute.