My Shark Diving Life
For some people the phrase, “life begins at 65”, means using their new found freedom to see the world on a cruise ship or to go caravanning around Australia, while for others the golf course or bowling green beckons. None of those pursuits appealed to me. Instead, I chose to go diving with sharks.
Aged 65, I plunged into my scuba diving odyssey, hesitantly at first, but then as my confidence underwater grew, my fascination with sharks began and quickly developed into a full-blown addiction. As I turn 80, still as keen as ever, I have logged 1000 dives, seizing the opportunity whenever I can to observe, encounter or interact with sharks. In 15 years of diving in Australia and overseas I have been privileged to have shared the ocean with hundreds of sharks, among them at least 40 different species. I have dived with bull and tiger sharks, whale sharks, thresher sharks, hammerhead sharks, spinner sharks, reef sharks, leopard sharks, grey nurse sharks, wobbegong sharks, bamboo sharks, blind sharks and the very rare Colclough’s sharks. While all encounters are memorable, two of them stand out as mind-blowingly momentous, a rendezvous with an oceanic white tip far out in the Indian Ocean, and closer to home a very close-up interaction with a great white. No matter how closely a shark approaches, I have never experienced any fear, only an incredible feeling of joy,fascination and above all a sense of privilege to be allowed to swim among them. Keenly aware that sharks are wild animals, I am always on high alert but even then I have been caught off-guard, once when a big tiger shark unsighted by me poked me in my left side with its snout, and on another occasion when a bull shark turning away from me thwacked my head with its tail, dislodging my mask.
My first tentative steps at blowing bubbles underwater began thanks to my daughter Gabrielle, then aged 13. We were on a father-daughter holiday in Cairns when she cajoled me to join her on a Discover Scuba dive on a day trip out to the reef.
She was hooked, and as soon as we returned home she enrolled in a dive course, quickly advancing through all the stages to become a qualified dive instructor. I was a bit slower in getting started but when I finally did aged 65 there was no turning back. After obtaining my Open Water Dive Certificate, I continued to dive but waited until Gabrielle had become a PADI dive instructor so that she could supervise my Advanced Diving course. At 18 she was teaching me how to dive, while above water I was teaching her how to drive. After emerging from our Advanced diving sessions, she would place her P plates on my car to drive us home from the dive shop. Diving with my daughter is a special kind of bonding experience, and we have shared hundreds of dives at our home dive site and overseas.
Living on the far north coast of NSW, I am so lucky to be able to indulge my passion for sharks at nearby Nguthungulli Julian Rocks Nature Reserve in the Cape Byron Marine Park. While Australia is world-renowned among divers for Queensland’s Great Barrier Reef, South Australia’s caged white shark diving and Western Australia’s whale shark haven of Ningaloo, Nguthungulli is relatively little known. But to the cognoscenti, it is one of the best dive locations in the country; once discovered, people keep coming back again and again. As I do, at least twice a week.
Located just 2.7 kilometres off Byron’s famed surfing and sun bathing beaches, a pair of rocky outcrops, 20 or so metres high, marks the spot where just below the surface you will find yourself amid an extravaganza of fish, turtles, rays, sometimes even dolphins and whales…and a never- ending display of sharks, resident, visiting or just passing by. The popularity of Nguthungulli for so many marine creatures is due to its sub-tropical location, where tropical and temperate waters combine to attract as many as one thousand marine species. It is one of the best shark dives in Australia. Nowhere that I know of will you see so many sharks all year round. The moment you back roll into the water and descend to the bottom, you are likely to see one of the three species of wobbegong sharks that call Nguthungulli home. Their beautiful colourings and patterns are a delight to behold, and while they mostly rest during the day, it is a joy to see them moving through the water in their inimitable swaggering style.
In summer, Nguthungulli plays host to the biggest known aggregation of leopard sharks in the world (called zebra sharks in some other places, but now officially known by their common name as Indo-Pacific leopard sharks, their scientific name, Stegostoma tigrinum). As many as 40 to 50 leopards are here at the same time, entertaining divers with their break-dancing antics, approaching head-on, turning away at the last moment, twisting and shaking, diving straight down to the bottom, rubbing their bellies on the sand or climbing up towards the surface, even performing complete somersaults. It is an honour to be involved as a citizen scientist in the Cape Byron Leopard Shark Project, initiated by Dr David Robinson, co-owner of Sundive Byron Bay. Since he started the project in 2019, I have uploaded hundreds of leopard shark photos onto the Wild book for Sharks database. In all, more than 500 sharks have been identified from images submitted by all divers who visit Nguthungulli.
As the waters cool, the leopards move on and are replaced by our much more sedate winter visitors, the grey nurse shark (known elsewhere as sand tiger sharks or spotted ragged tooth sharks, scientific name Carcharias taurus). Glad you paid attention to the scientific names as they prevent all the confusion of common names of which there can be many for just the one shark. Consequently, I have immersed myself in the taxonomy of sharks, memorising the scientific names of more than 500 species alive today. Obsessive? Definitely!
As well as our leopard and grey nurse seasons, occasionally we will see bullsharks, bronze whalers, oceanic black tips and spinners, among others, passing by. It was here while diving with daughter Gabrielle and a group of friends that a great white approached us near the end of our dive. First sighted some 15 metres away, it was unmistakably a great white, a strong, sturdy, juvenile female, about 2.8 metres long, cruising straight towards us. All muscle and effortless energy, the rhythmic movement of her powerful tail and her natural curiosity bringing her within arm’s length of us, even touching one of our divers, before she veered off and disappeared out of our sight.
But only momentarily. We saw her again as she circled us several times duringour safety stop before we made it to the surface and hailed the dive boat where once aboard we high-fived each other amidst screams of delight. There was no fear at any time, just exhilaration, even euphoria at experiencing such a close encounter with one of the ocean’s great apex predators.
While I have dived in many overseas locations, I make what has become an annual pilgrimage to the island of Fuvahmulah in the far south of the Maldives. Off the beaten tourist and surfers track, Fuvahmulah, known as Shark Island, is home to an estimated four hundred tiger sharks. As soon as you enter the water, they’re there, lots of them, big ones. Most of them females and many of them pregnant.
A scientific program, using underwater ultra sounds, has made this amazing discovery, and further research is taking place to find out why. It’s not only tigers that make this place so incredibly breathtaking. Bustling with reef sharks, threshers, hammerheads and silvertips, depending on time of year, as well as a rich diversity of other marine life, the pristine coral reefs surrounding the island makes every dive an overpowering experience. My everlasting gratitude to Jono Allen from Blue Vagabonds for introducing me to this shark Nirvana.
