Shark Attract Day! Woohoo!
Dive brief!
This is where the food goes. The sharks are already waiting....
Jap bringing the food down. It's a big tuna head in a crate so that the sharks can't actually eat it. This attracts them without actually causing a feeding frenzy which is bad for the sharks and probably more dangerous for us!
Securing the shark food
Here they come! The white tips, which are way more mellow and totally unaggressive, tried REALLY hard to get the food. The grey reefies (black tails) which are a bit more shark-like, bigger (4-5ft. long), beefier, and faster, just circled the food, first at a distance and then closer. They are also pretty unaggressive, but they could definitely do ALOT of damage very fast if they decided that you looked yummy!
Count the sharks!
Count the divers! We are up against the wall. Notice the streams of bubbles...
So after a bit when it got calmer, Jap called us over to the pinnacle where the food was in pairs. So we were pretty much right in the action! Very cool! And a bit scary cause there was no wall behind us now and so you couldn't see the sharks behind you! This is me and David going back to the wall.
This is what it looked like whe you were up close. Just madness over the food.
Earlier that morning, Chris (the bio guy) pulled up the Nautilus trap. We caught 30! So we helped him tag and measure them which was pretty cool.
Inside of a nautilus shell
Told you they were funky.
And we caught a super rare white one. It may even be a new species, but who knows. Whitey is now at the Townsville Aquarium to be studied.
Nautilus party
Class time
Research in action!
It started to rain and get super windy and chilly, so we hid under the table. We're such dedicated tourists/volunteers/researchers!
Beautiful sunset and Thomas and Katherine from Austria
Kristin and David (my dive buddy) from Tahoe
The whole gang
(Note to Eric: See French Speedo guy!?!)
(Note to Eric: See French Speedo guy!?!)
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