There are few places in the world where you can interact with large sharks all day and all night. One of those places is Little Bahama Bank, off the west side of Grand Bahama island. Grand Bahama is one of the northernmost islands of the 700-island Bahamas chain, and rests closer to Florida than any of the larger Bahamian islands. A number of the islands are flanked by banks—areas of shallower water, ten to thirty feet in depth. Many of the banks adjoin far deeper water.
“The waters around Little Bahama Bank are special for several reasons,” Jim Abernethy began. “First, the region is very close to the Gulf Stream current, which is constantly pushing fresh nutrients through. Second, thanks to its location in the northern part of the Caribbean, the Bahamas have a mix of temperate and tropical water, and a wide diversity and abundance of marine life. The Bahamas have the largest conglomeration of large sharks I’ve ever seen—tigers, which can go up to twenty-four feet, and great hammerhead, which can reach twenty-one feet. Bull, lemon, and oceanic white tips can also be found there.”
Found in temperate and tropical seas the world over, tiger sharks take their name from the stripes that ornament their sides. They average twelve to fourteen feet in size, and are known for their catholic diets, taking bony fish, turtles, crustaceans, birds, and other sharks; man-made garbage is sometimes found in their stomachs. Research suggests that these fish feed a great deal on rays, especially stingrays. They are marked by the straightness of their heads, and prominent dorsal fins that resemble the fins of a killer whale.
Like many shark divers, Jim and his team chum the water with assorted fish remains to bring the sharks in. Unlike some others, these divers are in the open water with no cages present. “We brief everyone on how to behave before we go in the water, so that the large sharks don’t mistake us for their food,” Jim continued, “and we have crew members in the water to insure everyone follows our rules for diver safety.” When Jim is leading an excursion around Little Bahama Bank, there are several spots he’s likely to hit. “We’ll visit a site called Carcharias Cut, a fairly shallow reef dive of forty-five to seventy feet. It takes its name from the great white shark, as one was seen there some years back. We’re not after great whites, though—here we’ll generally find Caribbean reef sharks, up to twenty-five at a time. We’ll also get lemon sharks, great hammerheads, and tigers here, and bull sharks in the winter months. This site’s close to the Gulf Stream current, so the visibility is consistently good, sometimes over one hundred feet. There’s also a huge cave that’s frequented by large schools of glass minnows, and we’ll often see loggerhead, hawksbill, and green turtles as well.
“Another spot we’ll visit—especially if we’re after tiger sharks—is called Tiger Beach. There’s a shallow reef and a section with turtle grass as well. It’s all very shallow—fifteen feet and less—and we’ll get the sharks right up to the shore. We’ve had occasions where there have been twenty tiger sharks and thirty lemon sharks there, no animal less than eight feet in length. It’s awe-inspiring to be in the water with these fish in such prolific numbers, especially when we know how their populations have been decimated in other parts of the world.”
While sharks are the emphasis for many of Jim’s excursions, it’s always fun to mix things up a bit—and who better to while away some time with than the wild dolphins at White Sand Ridge. “The area is home to 150 Atlantic spotted dolphins and forty bottlenose,” Jim continued. “They are completely wild, not rewarded with food for their interactions. They simply love to interact with people. Visitors come from everywhere for a chance to swim with them. We do both day and night dives. In the daytime, you have to exert yourself a bit—if you don’t swim with the dolphins, they’ll lose interest. But if you can dive down with them, they’ll play. Keep-away is a favorite game; give them a scarf, and they’ll pass it around to each other. At night, they move into deeper water in the Gulf Stream, where they’ll feed on squid and flying fish. Using lights, we’ll attract the squid and flying fish to the surface, and the dolphins will follow. They feed for an hour or so, and then they’re ready to play. During these sessions, we’ve also seen sailfish, swordfish, and marlin.”
Despite sharks’ fearsome reputation, Jim’s guests have never had an attack from any shark, despite hundreds of cageless dives. In fact, he’s found that sharks can be very playful—and that some show a decided penchant for photography. “Among serious underwater photographers, there’s an ongoing debate between the merits of Canon and Nikon cameras,” Jim said. “I’m a Canon man myself. I mention this because we’ve had sharks ‘borrow’ cameras from photographers on twenty-five different occasions—and on two of those occasions, the sharks actually took photographs. The first, an animal we call Baby Cakes, has figured in ten of the twenty-five camera removals. On this occasion, Baby Cakes borrowed the camera—a Nikon D70—from a Spanish biologist. The first picture he shot was of the back of his own throat. It was out of focus, dark—overall, a terrible shot. Baby Cakes eventually spit the camera out, and we saw the strobe fire—this shot was of Tiger Beach, perfectly level and in focus. Not bad.
“The second tiger shark to have a go at photography is an animal we call Nacho. He happened to take my camera—a Canon 20D. Nacho swam off with the camera like a little kid who’s just gotten a new toy; he seemed giddy. He swam around with the Canon for fifteen minutes, spitting it out, grabbing it again. He even shared it with three other sharks, who also played with it. After fifteen minutes, I was getting a little concerned; after all, it’s a seven-thousand-dollar camera! As a few of us pursued Nacho, we saw the strobes firing—one, two, three, four shots—and then he let go. When we reviewed the pictures, we saw that he’d taken three horizontal shots and one vertical. As any photographer knows, cover (vertical) shots pay better than inside shots, so we figured that the sharks were learning. Like most of us, they started with a Nikon and then progressed to the superior system, Canon. You can clearly see the images getting better as well. Of course they all chose the digital cameras. And some people still think they are dumb!”
JIM ABERNETHY is the owner of Scuba Adventures (www.scuba-adventures.com), which leads diving excursions out of Palm Beach, Florida, and the Bahamas. When he started snorkeling in the bathtub, his parents took him to the ocean, at the ripe old age of five; he hasn’t gotten out of the water since. Certified at the age of twelve, Jim has been diving for more than thirty years, and has worked in the dive industry as a captain, scuba instructor, and dive boat operator since 1981. An accomplished photographer and videographer, his footage has been seen on BBC Wildlife, Discovery Channel, National Geographic, Animal Planet, CNN, and many local Florida stations. He has a passion for sharks, turtles, dolphins, and manatees, and works diligently with numerous agencies to protect them. When he’s not leading trips, Jim enjoys flying in the Over-Sea’r, his amazing flying inflatable boat. He also enjoys spotting mantas, dolphins, sharks, turtles, and anything else of interest to divers from his own spotter plane, while guests dive from his boats.
Getting There: Freeport, one of the main cities of the Bahamas, is on Grand Bahama island, and is served by many major carriers. Some of the live-aboards that visit Little Bahama Bank depart from the Palm Beach area.
Best Time to Visit: Jim Abernethy leads trips between December and April, prime time for shark viewing.
Accommodations: Jim Abernethy’s Scuba Adventures (888-901-3483; www.scuba-adventures.com) leads a number of live-aboard shark-oriented trips to Little Bahama Bank and beyond. The many lodging options on Grand Bahama island are outlined on the Grand Bahama Island Tourism Board Website, www.grand-bahama.com.
Dive Shops/Guides: If you opt to stay on Grand Bahama, there are a number of dive shops that lead trips, including UNEXSO (242-373-1244; www.unexso.com).
Whale sharks arrive at Gladden Spit each spring to gorge on snapper eggs and milt.
