Recently I made a trip to the Bahamas to dive with sharks. The original plan was to dive with tiger sharks on Grand Bahama, then fly to Bimini a day later to dive with hammerhead sharks.

Well, the weather did not cooperate. you normally think of the Bahamas a warm with gentle breezes. On this particular trip, however the weather was mostly overcast, windy, and occasional rain. It was cool enough that some fo the native Bahamians were wearing jackets. On Bimini, the weather caused a lot of outgoing flights to be cancelled, which caused problems for several people.

On Grand Bahama, the dive with tiger sharks was cancelled. One of the big factors is visibility, and when the visibility bad due to sand or other sediment in the water, the dive masters cannot clearly see the sharks, so they would be at risk. This was unfortunate, since the cab ride between the hotel and airport is about $100 each way, plus the nights at the hotel.

After flying to Bimini on a 14 passenger twin turbo-prop plane, the first day of diving was cancelled due to weather conditions. All was not lost however, and I got into a cage while the staff fed bull sharks. Bull sharks are considered one of the most dangerous sharks behind great white sharks, hence the cage.

Fortunately, the next day the weather improved to allow us to dive with the great hammerhead sharks. The biggest was perhaps 15 feet long. The hammerhead sharks do not like to be touched, so while the divemasters were feeding the sharks, there was no significant risk to us as divers. We were intentionally wearing more weight than usual, to help keep us in place on the bottom.

The third day of diving in Bimini took up to Middle Turtle Rock to dive one of the reefs there, then the second site to dive with Caribbean reef sharks. We were supposed to dive with hammerhead sharks again in the afternoon, but weather struck again, and visibility would not allow this to happen.

It was not until the last day when I left that the sun finally came out. Oh well, next time!