People say something is dangerous but you've done it so often you’re blind to the dangers.
When I was in the diving industry we used to feed the sharks. It was part of our service and very popular with customers who craved an adrenalin high and wanted some stunning photographs to show the folks back home.
The sharks liked it too. They enjoyed a free meal and soon caught on. When they heard us coming they would congregate round the feeding stations. We’d arrive and find them waiting for us. It was all very convenient, safe and predictable – or so it seemed.
The regular diners were reef sharks of the white-tipped sort with fine physiques and good table manners. They didn’t crash in for a quick bite. The white tips took time to assess the situation and decide when it was safe to take the tempting morsels we handed out to them. It wasn’t difficult to see why they had survived the Permian Extinction and gone on to see the demise of the dinosaurs.
Admittedly, the reefees got a bit agitated on occasions. That was when bronze whalers or tiger sharks appeared. We got used to the whalers but the tigers always spooked us … in a sense we got it half right.
Reef sharks are safe but whalers and tigers should be treated with caution. We should have worried about the whalers and we should have worried about hammerheads. One day a mob of the weird-looking sharks appeared and went on the rampage.
Bags of fish were snatched from our hands and a leisurely dinner party degenerated into a feeding frenzy. Divers panicked and fled to the surface (dangerous). Others froze (wise). One guy received cuts to his hand. Blood streamed from the wound and that was scary.
We left the scene and got back to our boat, relieved that no one was seriously hurt. After that, shark feeding was dropped from our list of activities. Other operators continued to offer the service and it still goes on despite the occasional mishap.
My advice is to avoid shark feeding unless you are well out of reach of the sharks. Shark viewing is different. Sharks are usually around and keeping an eye on you when you go diving. There’s no need to ignore them. There's no need to be scared of them either. As a scuba diver, swimming around under water, your chance of an unfortunate encounter with a shark is minimal - unless you do something silly.
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