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Tiger Beach...Thank You Ocean Gods! Finally, we have beautiful weather.

January 31, 2017 - Tiger Beach, Northern Bahamas. When we arrived in the Bahamas we had to deal with crappy weather again. But thankfully we were only dealing with the tail end of the storm that hit us last week. That storm cut our dive week in half. We were only able to get out 3 of the 6 days of diving that were planned. So we only lost the first day of diving. Which was good. It sucked that we lost a day, but it was great that we still had 5 days of diving ahead of us.

The winds were dying down and we were able to motor out to Tiger Beach in the evening. So when we woke up the following morning, we woke up to flat calm seas. It was just perfection. We anchored up at Fish Tales and started chumming. When we got out there, there were two other liveaboards diving TB as well, so I knew the tiger action would be much more relaxed than the previous week. Last week we averaged 4 to 6 tigers on each dive. When we share sharks with other boats, we average 2 to 3. The action is always slower, but a lot safer.

We had an amazing time with the sharks on our first day. I had recorded some blogs about it. But the card was corrupted and all my videos disappeared. Which sucked, but I guess my camera decided my blogs were more horrible than they usually are. lol
Reader Disclaimer: all my video blogs are recorded in 3B. Three beers and they look good. 

Tiger Beach is such an amazing place. It truly does ruin people here. When you dive this spot, you will never be able to go anywhere else again and do normal reef dives. It is just that magical. On our third day diving here, we had Patches the great hammerhead show up. It seems she has decided to call Tiger Beach home. At least for this season. It truly does make the dives that much more special when you have a great hammerhead swimming among the tiger sharks here. The photos and videos just pop with excitement and life. Just epic stuff.

We ended up having a meeting to discuss whether we all wanted to stay or move on to Bimini as per our schedule. The majority wanted to stay, but a few people really wanted to experience Bimini. So we pulled anchor and motored over to Bimini. I was very sad leaving TB, especially because I won't be back until October. It’s such a special place for me. This place truly is home.

To Be continued. Next blog update…Hello Bimini. 

Florida Shark Diving- Killer Way to spend my Day!

January 28 - West Palm Beach, Florida. We just returned from Tiger Beach. I said good bye to our friends who joined us and then prepped my dive gear. I wanted to check out the local diving and was invited by Ryan, the owner of Deep Obsession charters. The only problem was when we arrived it was cold as hell. we had left the Bahamas and it was windy, but warm. Here in Florida, it was rainy and really freaking cold. I was rethinking my decision to go diving.

Thankfully as the day progressed, so did the sun’s warmth. So I put my big boy pants on, grabbed Vera, (my camera) and headed out to meet up with Ryan and the rest of the divers that were joining us on this trip. It was still chilly, but the sun felt good. We headed out for a three tank dive. (I only did two, it was freaking cold and too dark for Vera to capture any decent images.) 

We dropped in for the first dive and were greeted by a couple of goliath groupers. Damn, I love these crazy big fish. They are just cool looking and so massive. We also had a bunch of lemon sharks with us and I totally ignored them. I was busy chasing the goliath’s around, trying to get some shots of them. The photos for me here are challenging because I shoot natural light and it is so deep (80 - 90 feet), that the deeper images do not pop like when I shoot shallow. Maybe one day I will attach my strobes?

So I was taking a few pics of the grouper when I noticed one lemon that Ryan was playing with acting a bit different. I quickly left the groupers and swam over to watch what was going on. One of the lemons, they call Stevie, was coming in for a nose rub and just dropping onto the sand. 

It was amazing to watch, Ryan would grab her nose, no chain mail stimulation and no real rubbing going on and the shark would drop. He did this over and over. My total focus tuned into that one shark. I watched her swimming around. I found out pretty quickly that she is blind from one eye. 

The one thing I noticed was that as she swam around, she kept bumping into everything and everyone. At first I thought it was because of her eye. But that just seemed too clumsy and we have one eyed lemons at Tiger Beach and they are not that clumsy. But, as I continued to watch her, I realized that she knew exactly what she was doing, she was purposely running into divers, seeking out attention. It was so wild. My excitement grew. This was new behavior that I was witnessing and I wanted to learn more. She had a comfort level with the divers that none of the other lemons there shared.  

She followed us up and Ryan kept playing with her. He would grab her nose and she would drop. It was such an amazing thing to witness. I have always said that lemon sharks are one of the most intelligent of the shark species and here I was learning something new. She followed us all the way up to the surface and he played with her all the way up. I was on fire, and extremely happy I decided to visit. 

I have been documenting lemon shark behavior and this one is definately going in the book. 

We dropped in for our second dive on a spot where they regularly see tigers and great hammerheads. As we were dropping in, We saw this huge loggerhead turtle laying in the sand. I have never photographed one before so I raced over to shoot it. I felt guilty as hell because my Waterbug (my daughter) was not with me to see it. Sea turtles are our thing that we do together. So I haven't even told her yet. 

The action was slow, it took our entire dive, but we finally got a great hammerhead in. He grabbed a piece of bait and then took off. The encounter was brief, but I was satisfied. I really wasn't thinking about the hammer anyway, my mind just kept going back to Stevie the lemon shark. I was excited knowing I learned something new about these amazing sharks. It makes me excited to get back to Tiger Beach and see what new things I can learn from my lemon sharks there. I wont have to wait long, I am headed back out to Tiger Beach tomorrow night. The adventures and my education continues.

Tiger Beach - We Pulled it Off... HELL YEA!

January 27 - We are on our way home right now from the Bahamas back to West Palm Beach. This was an amazing weeks with extreme highs and lows. We arrived in the Bahamas to find out we had shit weather that lasted three days. We were stuck at port, trying to make the best of it; some of us used to the time to catch up on editing, others used it as a chance to catch up on sleep, we drank beers, we watched movies. We did what ever we could to keep our minds off of the sharks.

We finally got a weather window and during the afternoon of our third day we left port and headed out to Tiger Beach. We didn't make it out to TB, because it was still crappy, so we sheltered up at a shallow bank near by. Which is our captains routine when the weather is bad, but not disgustingly bad. But by 8am the following morning we were at Fish Tales, Tiger Beach and the weather was freaking beautiful. We needed it, after 3 days of crazy winds and stormy seas, our guests needed this. So did I. It has been a rocky start to the 2017 season. The winter weather has kicked my ass so far. Thankfully today was just amazing. Now all I needed were some tiger sharks to show our friends.  

We did not have to wait for the tigers to show up. Thankfully as soon as we dropped in, Maui the tiger shark was there to greet us. It was on! We spent the day diving with tiger after tiger. Once we started chumming the parade of tigers just kept coming. We decided to make our last dive a dusk / night dive. We had four tigers for this dive and Patches the great hammerhead showed up to say hi. Patches is one of Bimini’s great hammerheads that showed up here off Tiger Beach back in October 2016. She decided she liked it and didn't return to Bimini this season. Which was so great for us because if she stayed with us, that would mean that we didn't have to motor over to Bimini for the great hammerhead part of the trip. You do not leave sharks to find sharks. 

A few Images from the trip....

We ended our fist day of diving with a bang. hell the day was so good, it made up for the three days we lost in that one day. The following two days we also amazing days with lots of tigers, resting lemon sharks, Gary the grouper (my buddy) and happily Patches stayed with us the rest of the trip. It was so damn good. 

The weather did kick back up again. But thankfully it did not hurt our diving. It did make getting back on the boat a little more challenging. The swells were kicking the boat around a bit and so we had to be much more careful with the dive ladder. 

On our final day we kicked off the AM with two morning dives. They were both so good. We averaged 5 tiger sharks on both with Patches the great hammerhead hanging with us the whole time. I have mentioned before how sharks have attitude with each other. Well I got to see a lot of fire between Patches and the tigers. She is a bold shark, and does not allow them to push her around. Despite their numbers and size. She bit the tigers three times in front of us, letting them know she was annoyed with them. Of course, we also witnessed the tigers trying to snap at her as well. The game within the game is just amazing.

Our final dive of the trip we dropped down to a nice dive with 4 tigers and of course Patches with us, but by the end of the dive the tiger total went up to 10 tigers. It was freaking intense. The tigers were on fire and I was all over the place, trying to make sure everyone was safe. Its hard to keep track of 4 tigers, but when there is ten it gets damn near impossible. It was an amazing trip with amazing people. 

Everyone is going home super happy. Despite losing three days, we still managed to experience some of the best shark diving nature has to offer. We had an insane three days. But, this is why you plan trips over multiple days because you just never know what mother nature is going to throw your way. On our journey home, I was sitting there watching and listening to our guests have conversations about the trip. They were looking at their pictures and videos, smiling, laughing… and all I could think was damn, how blessed am I that I can bring people to this amazing place and show them these amazing animals. 

 

 

 

 

Tiger Beach - Day 2 -Freaking Winter Storm followed us from Norway!

January 22 - Day 1 - The crossing sucked. We were rocking and rolling all night as we made our way into the Bahamas. We finally made land around 10AM. This was due to a very late start (thanks to the airline canceling all my flights). Anyway, we arrived to more bad weather which kept us from getting out to Tiger Beach. A hell of a great start to our January season. It feels like Norway’s weather followed me here. Damn it. We did have an amazing sunset, which is my first for the 2017 season. Always happy about that.

 

January 23 - Day 2 - Well we have more bad weather. Today we have 35 knot winds kicking us around. Thankfully we are still on West End, Grand Bahamas instead of out at sea. Because the conditions would of kicked the hell out of us. We are trying to make the most of the day. Some of us are editing photos and videos, other watching movies just killing time doing what we can to keep our mind off the sharks. It’s tough being so close, yet so far. Hopefully tomorrow is a better day. 

Tiger Beach - Travel Day...The adventure Begins, again.

January 20 - The adventures continue. We are headed back to Tiger Beach for two weeks of tigers and great hammerheads. Winter season is such a great time to visit this dive site. This time of year always marks the return of all our big resident tigers, Hook, Emma, Princess, Freckles, New Girl, Maui, Dirty Girl, etc. It also means great hammerhead season around Bimini Island. 

I have been visiting this dive site since 2003. So there is a lot of history here and is one of my most favorite places to visit. (For those of you who want to know the true history of Tiger Beach, read my blog post from January 2014.) Its also my first challenge of documenting our journey this season. Because this is a liveaboard, I do not have access to internet out there, so I will not be able to post blogs on a daily basis. So the best way for me to handle this one, is to blog the week in one long-ish blog. Sorry about that. I will have a write up, along with a short video to share the day. The highlights, or sharks we encounter. Just things of note. The weather if it matters and what is going on with the sharks. I am looking forward to sharing this with you…see you in a week and I hope you enjoy.

Recorded in my workshop and yes, those are Star Wars helmets in the back ground. My geekiness has been exposed.

January 21 - Travel day. Well the day starts with a hiccup. I arrived at the airport at 6AM only to find out, that my 8AM flight was cancelled, and the next available flight was 12pm. Which means I would miss my flight to West Palm Beach. The boat was scheduled to leave at 10PM, but my new flight wouldn't land in West Palm until 12 midnight. So my scheduled screwed up our departure time. Thankfully they are going to wait for me, but I hate doing that to everyone. The blunders of the travel life, but, It is what it is. 

Airport blog...

Last Day in Norway...Mother Nature can be cruel.

January 9 - Final day. The weather has kicked us around this week. So far we have only been able to get out there 2 days. Today is our final day and I am hoping we get a weather window to make it happen? Thankfully our group is very understanding. And you have to be. Not much we can do when mother ocean is roaring and baring her teeth. I have been on trips where people have thrown fits because the ocean has not been kind to us. You feel awful for those people, but it is what it is. You can’t force her to share her magic, she has to want to. 

We have made the most of our time, exploring the landscape, photographing the Northern lights and the local pub. I think the one thing we all wish we would of been able to do was go dog sledding. That sounded like fun. Or at least photograph the dogs. That would of been great as well. But we didn't get a shot at it. Perhaps next season I will include it in the adventure? 

8:30AM - I just walked out to check the weather and it has started snowing, I have tried to stay positive and determined that today would be the day that we get out…but I just don’t know if it is going to happen. Camera gear is ready and we are on stand by if it does happen. We will see? 

9AM - We get the call! We are going to give it a try. A rush of gear madness begins and then we are off. We head out into the ocean. It is less wind, but its snowing. So crazy when you think about what we are doing. We are going out into freezing arctic waters to go swim with giant predatory dolphins. Crazy wild and I absolutely love it!

Sadly we did not find the orcas, we found a couple of feeding humpbacks and we were hoping the orcas would show up, they are often found feeding together. The reality is, the orcas were not here, the huge pods are late. They have been consistently here for the past 6 years. This season the herring were off their normal schedule. People are scratching their heads trying to figure out why? I’ll just keep watching the rest of the season to see how it ends. 

Thankfully we got to see the orcas, of course the encounters were not what we were all hoping for. But that is why you keep coming back out here, because you never know what and when the ocean will deliver her magic and I know what this place is like when it is happening. The encounters are some of the greatest you will ever experience. 

January 10 - It sounds like the weather is starting to let up and I wish I could stay longer, becuase this could be the week we were dreaming of…but sadly I can’t. My schedule is pushing me forward and I need to be in the Bahamas in a few days. So I reluctantly said goodbye to my friends here in Norway and our shark family who joined us and I am off. I have an over night layover in New York, going to stay at my buddy Jaime’s place. Jaime is part of our crazy shark family, so looking forward to seeing him and catching up. And in the morning I am heading home for a few days of family time and to prep for two weeks of tigers and great hammerheads. Thank you Norway, despite the craziness of the weather, you were amazing and I will see you again next season. Oh hell yes, we will be back!

Orcas...Finally! But damn the freaking weather.

January 7, 2017 - We finally made it out. On Jan. 5 and 6th, we were land locked due to gail force winds. A storm was blowing through and there was no way we were going out. We actually tried to get out on the 5th, but we were forced to turn around and return to port. It killed us to not be able to get out there and find orcas, but nature is nature and she is going to kick you around and make you earn your time out there. 

We were sitting around at breakfast trying to figure out what to do with our day. We wanted to go dog sledding, but they were booked, so that was out. While we were hanging around I got a call from Marten that there were orcas and humpbacks in the Fjord and we had a short window to get out there and try to swim with them. The catch was, we had to go like now. I ran and gathered the group and within minutes, our gear was grabbed and we were hauling ass to the dive shop to throw on our dry suits. 

We dressed fast and headed out to sea. The pressure to see orcas was high. This was our fourth day out here and we still had not seen any orcas, so I was stressing. Even though weather is to blame, I still hate not seeing the animals we were here to see. So the second we saw that first dorsal fin crack the surface, I breathed a little bit. BUT, just a little. We still need to accomplish our goal and get in the water with them.

The orcas were hunting. They were pretty spread out and we followed them around for a while. Things were starting to happen. They began swimming closer together and the birds were starting to gather. Which was a great sign that the baitball was forming and there might be a feeding. 

Sadly in the distance we could see clouds and wind heading our way. We tried to stay out as long as possible with the orcas, but the winds made us leave. As soon as we started heading back in, the storm caught us. We had snow and hail hitting us, along with 40 knot winds as we sped back to port. We knew we had a short window to try and make this happen and we tried. So close, yet so far… Damn arctic storms. 

We still have two days left…come on mother nature, give us a little break.

ARCTIC ORCAS GALLERY

First Day on the Water...DAMN!!!

January 4, 2017 - Our first day on the water was pretty dramatic. It was minus 13, so needless to say it was freaking cold. This was also our introduction to Arctic diving, which always takes a day to get used to. Sadly though, the orcas were a no show. It turns out the herring is late this year, which means the orcas are late. There was a pod in the area two days before, but where that pod is now, is everyone’s guess. We did have some great moments with sperm whales. Now that was exciting for me. I’ve never seen a sperm whale. We didn't try to get in the water, because by the time we found them, we were all frozen. So we enjoyed watching them come up for a few breathes before they would drop back down into the depths to feed. 

A quick video of the ice build up on our boat. Crazy cold.

We had one curious sperm whale that turned towards us, swam up to the boat and right underneath us. It was a massive male, what a privilege to see it up that close. I would of videoed it, but my cameras batteries all were frozen and useless. Need to figure that out. I am also kicking myself for not dunking my camera,Vera under to snap a photo. It probably would of come out like crap, but it was so close, you never know? 

I was able to snap a few topside pics with Tony’s camera. He was boat sick. So he lent me his camera to shoot. It was great, poor Tony had to throw up and didn't quite make it into the sea, so he ended up, chucking on the side of our inflatable. It instantly froze, so we had all these different colors spread out on the side of our boat. It looked like a Jackson Pollock painting. It was sooo pretty! lol

Sperm Whales

We finished the day with about 3-4 different sperm whales. Which was very cool. But sadly we were not there for sperm whales, we were there for orca bait balls. Don’t get me wrong, if we had gotten in the water with the sperm whales it would of been insanely amazing and what a privilege seeing them out there. But whale watching from a boat is not what we are here to do… Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day. 

We capped off the evening with more Northern Lights. The show was just amazing. 

Northern Lights

Travel Day - Arrived In Andenes...finally!

Sorry this one is a day late guys...trying to balance writing/editing blogs and time with our friends. Is difficult. 

January 3, 2017 - The trip begins. We arrived in Andenes and talk about a shock to the senses. In Oslo, it was sunny, no snow and a beautiful 30 degrees. How quickly your perspective about what is beautiful weather changes. Once we jumped in that airplane and headed to Andenes, I quickly saw the color in the landscape change. The further we went, the whiter everything got. Well, so much for my 70 degree dream.

We landed in Bodo (which is a huge city, surprised the shit out of me.), for a quick layover before we headed to Andenes. There was some sort of snow flurry / or storm blowing through. I thought they were going to ground the airplanes, but nope! We took off in that shit. In Texas they would of closed down the whole airport. Here, this was just another day at the office. I guess thats just like me and my sharks, some people see craziness and chaos… I see a dance. The game within the game, I suppose?

I met up with half of our group in Bodo, which is always great seeing old friends and knowing they made the journey safely. We traveled together to Andenes. As I remembered from last year, the scenery as we flew to Andenes is the stuff that dreams are made of. It is so damn beautiful here. Everywhere you look is like a postcard, just breathtaking. Snowy mountains as far as the eye can see. 

Viewer discression...Don't think I am crazy because I laugh at myself in this clip. The weather is making me lose it. lol

We landed and drove to our hotel. It had just snowed the night before so there was fresh powder everywhere. The snow plows had already piled the snow up on the sides of the road. The town looks like something you would see in a christmas movie. You know the one; where no one believes the old man walking around is santa, except that one kid who everyone thinks is crazy as shit and in the end, they all praise the kid for not being crazy as shit. Well, Andenes would be the town the movie would be set in. Lol

We checked in and I met up with the rest of our group. Everyone except Tony had made it. His flight was not coming in till 10 in the evening. Anyway, we checked in with the dive shop, got the plans for the following morning. And well, we got good news and bad news.The good was that the orcas were seen and also humpbacks, fin whales and sperm whales. Which is great, but the bad news is the huge pods of orcas were late in arriving, AND the weather we were going to wake up to, for our first day in the water is one of the coldest they have had in a while, (minus 13 I think?) AND we have a couple days of shitty weather heading our way. Damn, “Welcome to the Arctic!”

We went out for dinner and then decided to check out a place, out of town where we could see the auroras without any light pollution. We took a taxi to a spot where the land owner allows people to shoot the auroras on his property, which is really great. A beautiful Fjord setting. We hiked though this wooded trail along with his big ass Rottweiler. It was pitch black and his bear sized dog was super excited running up and down the trail. The dog was friendly and cute, but the sound of him running at you in the dark sounded like a grizzly. Very unnerving. 

When we got there the auroras were kicking. The sky was dancing its dance and the colors were just swirling as the flew by. We all had a blast. It was a great way to kick off this trip. I am only hoping the weather and the animals will both cooperate tomorrow?

Northern Lights Gallery

Travel day - 23 hours of travel can kick your a@#!

January 2, 2017 - Sleep day. 23 hours of travel to get here from my home airport in Texas to Oslo, Norway - all I have done is sleep. I wanted to go around and film some of the local architecture around the airport here in Oslo, but I was wiped out. This past week has been nothing but late nights with family and friends (due to the holidays), and then I capped it with this marathon flight. My body just gave up the ghost and I crashed hard. Its 9:15pm here and 2:15pm back home. So there is a 7 hour difference that I need to adjust too as well.

Its all worth it though. Norway is beautiful. Its 30 degrees right now and there is no snow. So thats good I think? We will see how it is in Andenes, because that is a few hours (flight) away from here.

Hotel room vlog...sorry about the bed head. 

I spoke with the owner of the boats I chartered for this trip, Marten. He told me they already have orcas in the area. Which is good. That part always stresses me the hell out. But they are out there. Now we just need favorable conditions, and some baitballs. We have 6 days out there to try and make that happen. So we will see?

I will keep this write up short. I can see trying to keep a daily vlog/blog is going to be challenging. But I really want to share this world and the craziness (both highs and lows) of the Travel Life as a pro Shark Diver. It sounds wierd to me to say that, since I am out looking for orcas. But sharks are still my favorites and my career was built around the shark world.

I tried to upload this blog in my hotel room before I headed to the airport for Andenes, But ended up finishing it in the Bodo airport, Which is where we have our layover. It is a really nice airport. Small and cozy but plush as hell. There is also a snow storm blowing through here right now, so my dreams of no snow this week have been shot to hell. The adventures continue.
 

The cafe in the Bodo airport. My bro Thomas who has been on many adventures with, cleaning up cards for the orcas this week.

The cafe in the Bodo airport. My bro Thomas who has been on many adventures with, cleaning up cards for the orcas this week.