SHARK diving in cages? Forget it, that’s for Z-list celebs and wimps. Real men (and honeys such as filmstar Jessica Alba) like to get up close and personal with nature’s perfect predators in the open water. The place to send your clients is Stuart Cove’s, the legendary dive centre on New Providence Island in the Bahamas. True, they’re not great whites but, hell, a shark’s a shark.
The Bahamas tourism industry has just received a massive boost with the release of Into the Blue, a high-octane, sub-aqua thriller starring a body-perfect Lycra-clad Alba. Shot entirely in the picture-perfect Bahamas, and with 70% of the action on or below the waterline, it should have all self-respecting shark groupies flocking to try their luck as shark bait. It’s one of the few dive destinations that can guarantee shark sightings.
As a committed ‘sharkie’ I joined a small group of like-minded adrenaline junkies for Stuart Cove’s Shark Adventure, a two-dive outing that includes a shark feed.
We headed to a reef about 11 miles off the coast and prepared for our first dive – a ‘free swim’ with sharks.
Having seen large sharks several times while diving, I was not unduly worried. But when I stood on the same dive-boat platform at the same dive site where Alba had filmed, I had one of ‘those’ moments. Congregating below was an ever-increasing group of supposedly ‘docile’ Caribbean reef sharks – except they looked anything but docile. And they were expecting lunch.
Remembering Alba’s observation that “the sharks don’t care for the taste of humans”, I made my leap of faith. Descending the 10 metres to the bottom as quickly as possible, I was relieved to find the sharks, so far, hadn’t had a nibble. We set off to dive across the reef-top to the reef wall that plunges down to the ocean floor. Our escort comprised more than 20 sharks, some over two metres in length. At times they were literally in your face. Then, with a casual flick of the tail, they were out of sight.
With visibility more than 30 metres, we were shadowed by the ever-hopeful sharks. They, in turn, attracted a growing entourage of colourful tropical fish, including a two-metre long and malicious-looking grouper with a face as sour as Victor Meldrew’s.
We rose to the surface tracked by the increasingly frisky sharks. Before long, we were back in the water for the highlight of the Shark Adventure, the shark feed. We formed a semi-circle on the sandy bottom, keeping our hands together – a stray hand can look like a tasty fish to a ravenous shark. We waited, the sharks waited, and then our master of ceremonies, the shark feeder, joined us. Adorned in a chain-mesh protective suit, he clomped along the bottom like the Tin Man from Wizard of Oz.
The sharks, who by now should have had received an ASBO, knew it was lunchtime and like a marauding rugby pack on Viagra, they were on him.
They hustled, bumped and fought each other for prized lumps of fish produced from a lunch box. We watched in awe from a couple of metres away. In this feeding frenzy, the sharks would swim between us, above us and occasionally brush against us.
Fellow diver, Aquatours senior travel consultant Steve Teasdale said: “Guaranteed shark sightings in crystal-clear warm waters make the Bahamas a unique diving destination.” Another diver told me: “In the Red Sea, you’re lucky to see one shark in a week’s diving. Here, we saw 20 on one dive.”
When selling diving holidays, agents should be aware that sharks top most divers’ wish-lists and there’s nowhere better than the Bahamas to see them. Apart from the sharks, the Bahamas enjoys some of the Caribbean’s best diving with superb visibility, spectacular coral reefs, an abundance of colourful marine life, walls and wrecks. And, with more than 700 islands in the archipelago, divers are spoilt for choice.
Bahamas Tourist Office sales manager Giovani Grant is hopeful the movie will “highlight the Bahamas unique diving opportunities”.
He was so impressed with Alba’s underwater attributes that he has just completed a PADI Open Water course at Stuart Cove’s. Now that’s dedication.
- Aquatours offers a seven-night package to the Bahamas including flights, transfers and room-only accommodation at Orange Hill Beach Inn from £795. A five-day/10-dive pack with Stuart Cove’s is £199.
