Hi, I'm Jonathan Bird and welcome to my world!
We often think of sharks as creatures of the tropics, living in clear warm waters near
coral reefs, or perhaps prowling the shallows near a beach.
But sharks live all over the world, in all of the oceans from the tropics to the arctic,
from the shallows to the deep sea.
This is one such animal. The Greenland shark, named after the place where it was first seen.
This massive carnivore lives in the coldest water on Earth--the icy depths of the Arctic
Ocean.
But you don't need to go all the way to the arctic to see one of these sharks. In
recent years, divers have been getting surprise visits by Greenland sharks right here in the
St. Lawrence!
In the remote Canadian town of Baie-Comeau in Quebec, Greenland sharks come into shallow
water during the summer.
They enter a narrow, deep bay where the surface is darkened by tannins from river runoff.
The visibility is not very good.
I'm going out to see if I can dive with one of these monster sharks in the St. Lawrence.
My guide to diving with the Greenland sharks is Sylvain Sorois, a local dive instructor
and dive boat operator. He's been diving with the Greenland sharks for many years.
JONATHAN: So Sylvain, how do we get the sharks to come over to us underwater? Do we have
some bait or chum or something?
SYLVAIN: ( with French accent ) We're not going to use some bait. Those sharks are curious.
They are predators—they want to know what invades their territory, so they're going
to come to see us.
JONATHAN: Wait a minute, you're telling me that they're just going to come over,
out of curiosity?
SYLVAIN: Yes! We are strangers in their territory, so they are going to investigate us, turn
around, and go back to their daily routine.
JONATHAN: Wow! Well, this I've got to see. Let's go diving!
SYLVAIN: Let's go diving!
Dry suits take diving to another level of complexity.
We begin suiting up to dive into the chilly water of the St. Lawrence. I need a dry suit
to stay warm, because the water rarely goes above 40 degrees. That's cold!
I jump into the water, grab my camera and head towards the bottom, but something is
wrong. The water is not cold. It's nearly 60 degrees!
Sylvain starts banging a pair of rocks together. He believes this will attract the sharks because
they are curious about the sound.
I see a kind of fish called sand lance, but no sharks.
So this time no luck Jonathan?
Nothing! We went down, we sat around at about 65, 70 feet for an hour and we looked all
directions into the darkness—and I do mean darkness—and we saw nothing.
I'm not one to give up easily, so we head out the next day to try again.
Well, it's the second day of the trip. So far, four dives, zero sharks. Needless to
say, shark diving is not always predictable.
I enter the water again, with my fingers crossed.
We head to the bottom, engulfed in near darkness. The bottom is covered in beautiful anemones,
and a crab scurries away from my lights.
Sylvain does his best to attract the sharks, clicking his rocks together. But nothing shows
up. The water is just too warm.
Fifty five degrees at the bottom!
Another dive with no sharks.
Normally, I'd be thrilled with water that is 20 degrees too warm, I mean, who doesn't
love warm water? But these are arctic sharks. They like really cold water. So if I want
to find any sharks, I gotta find some cold water, and that probably means we're going
to have to dive deep.
The next day we move the boat a little further from shore.
Down on the bottom, it's so dark; my camera can barely produce an image of Sylvain in
the twilight at 110 feet. But good news! The water is cold at this depth! We only wait
a few minutes and then...
...out of the darkness comes a big shape!
It's a Greenland shark! I can't believe it! Just like Sylvain said, it's coming
over to give me a look. No chum, no bait, just pure curiosity!!
What an odd looking shark, with a big, round body and a small mouth, filled with rows of
tiny razor-sharp teeth!
Most of my encounters with sharks are in warm, clear water. It's so weird to be swimming
with a huge shark like this in cold, murky water. This shark is more than 10 feet long,
but it's only a small one. Greenland sharks reach a massive 21 feet, making them among
the largest carnivorous sharks in the world. Yet studies suggest they grow extremely slowly:
less than an inch a year. So this 10 footer may be a hundred years old. And that's nothing—researchers
think the Greenland shark may live to be 200 years old!
Even though it is said that these sharks don't see well, this one appears to be watching
me—his eye following my every move.
The shark stays with me for fifteen minutes, swimming slowly and not presenting any threat
to me at all. He just seems curious. But soon he picks up the pace and I can no longer keep
up. He swims into the gloom and my dive is over because I'm low on air.
Sylvain and I head back up to the surface.
Wooo! I've finally seen a Greenland shark! We decided to go a little deeper, 110 feet,
just so we could get into that colder water and when we got down there it was freezing
cold, and then out of the darkness came the big huge Greenland shark! It was incredible!
On the way back to the dock I still can't believe what an amazing encounter I just had.
Sometimes all the effort is worth it in the end.