Do sharks sleep?
Coming up, a dark and spooky night dive with sharks!
Welcome to Jonathan Bird’s Blue World!
It’s a beautiful evening as the sun sets behind the Dolphin Dream dive boat.
But the Blue World and Brave Wilderness teams are just beginning to embark on our next Bahamas
adventure!
We’ve all traveled to West End, Grand Bahama for a week of epic diving!
So far, it’s been incredible.
On our first few dives, we had encounters with five different shark species!
There were huge Tiger sharks, curious Lemon sharks, Reef sharks, nurse sharks and of course
Patches the famous Hammerhead!
The Brave Wilderness guys have gotten some great experience filming sharks underwater
and we’ve all had a fabulous time diving together.
So we’ve done a lot of shark diving on this show, and we’ve done a lot of night diving,
but tonight e are going to combine the two into shark night diving, just to see how many
sharks we can find after dark…and I’m sure it’s not going to be scary at all.
As the sun dips below the horizon, we start suiting up.
Well, hopefully I’m going to go find some sharks and it will be interesting to see if
the Blue Wilderness guys have gotten eaten yet.
Hee hee!
This is going to be a piece of cake!
On the bottom, we meet up with Mario from the Brave Wilderness team who is currently
surrounded by Tiger sharks in the semi-darkness.
As it gets darker, we’ll be able to locate the boat by the bright lights on the stern.
In the absence of sunlight, the colors of the reef really pop under our video lights.
As darkness fully falls, basket stars unfurl and catch plankton with their tendril arms.
Purple rope sponges don’t do anything exciting, but they look cool!
Even so, sharks are cooler!
And there are lots of them.
With the limited range of our lights, the sharks come and go into the darkness regularly--and
it’s pretty spooky.
It’s almost impossible to see the sharks until they are right on top of us!
Cameraman Bill and I come across a resting Lemon shark covered in remoras that look really
annoying.
I inch my way up close to the shark, trying not to spook her.
While a few species of sharks can never stop swimming, most can in fact rest on the bottom
and gulp water to breathe--a behavior known as buccal pumping.
Biologists don’t really know if sharks sleep.
But these lights are really bright so it seems plausible that this shark is really zonked
out.
I keep inching my way forward until I can get an awesome view of the teeth!
Ever coughed in your sleep?
Apparently sharks do too, and now she’s awake and fully aware of 10,000 lumens of
LED video lights in her face.
Time to leave.
Bill is annoyed that I scared the shark away, so now he has to find us another one.
Look behind you Bill!
Mark and Mario have found another resting Lemon shark and they are getting even closer
than I did.
Wait a minute, is Mark petting the shark???
Pretty impressive for guys that hadn’t even dove with sharks 2 days ago!
One bad idea leads to another.
I’m going to try that myself!
I really think that sharks must sleep because that seems like the best explanation for this
shark putting up with being petted like a puppy.
I think the other sharks are starting to get jealous!
I decide to try the tonic immobility technique I learned with master shark handler Neal Harvey
and gently rub the shark under the snout.
But all I manage to accomplish is waking her up.
Nearby, Bill spots a southern stingray foraging for food.
Unfortunately sharks eat stingrays.
Bill and I watch as a chase begins.
We’ll never know how it ends.
After an hour with the sharks in the dark, our scuba tanks are getting low, so its time
to make for the boat.
As we ascend, the sharks circle below.
We know they’re not aggressive but that doesn’t make it any less unsettling.
We do our safety stop on the descent line while keeping an eye on the sharks, and then
we can get out.
Oh Man, that was crazy!
Did you see that thing?
I saw it all happen, that was amazing!
Man, so the Lemon shark was…I thought it was sleeping!
Yeah !I did too.
And what happened?
I was filming this Southern ray coming by, nighttime life, here we go.
And then the southern ray got closer and closer and all the sudden about three feet away the
shark woke up and just went right after him!
It went nuts!
Yeah
I though the shark was completely asleep and as soon as that ray was anywhere near him
man boom!
It was a big fight.
Yeah it was chasing , it was darting all around, the shark was swimming after it.
All over the place.
Yeah I don’t know what happened.
I don’t know
They went off into the darkness and we have no idea what happened, but wow man, just when
you think the shark is sleeping, hmm, not so much.
It was incredible
That was cool, definitely worth that dive.
Yeah
The night life in the ocean is always spectacular.
Although it may seem scary, night diving is actually quite peaceful.
It’s one of my favorite ways to experience the Blue World.
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