Sharks--not so scary really

That is me back there, right behind them as they eat---you can see my dark green sleeves of my rash guard and of course, my camera in my right hand. Fat lot of good that did me, as something went wrong with my camera and it stored nothing until Friday.

I love sharks. That is probably because my only up close and personal experiences are with just reef sharks and nurse sharks, who are very nice sharks. They feel cool too, kind of pebbly. I got a reminder of that while I was on my knees taking closeups--got a great one of the inside of gills as they ate, and of course it is gone too---when I felt something under me, between my legs. I looked down and there was a sharky, swimming through me to get to the food. It startled me at first, then I remembered I like sharks, so who cares. In every pic, you will see Barry FAR behind me---he came around though and even touched one. These were his first sharks ever.

We saw sharks virtually every day, but the closest shots of them are from the shark feed that happened on Wednesday morning. Here are a few.

This is a cool one as it is taken from pretty far above, looking down on them as they got to the chum bucket.

This last dude was probably resting--notice the sucker fish on him? Now those kind of creep me out, and the guys we were diving with told us that one of the suckers got hold of one of them the one dive we missed and he was hard to get off of him. No thanks.




Nurse sharks do not get huge--less than 12 feet and I have only seen one or two that big. They can weigh up to about 230 pounds or so, although I cannot imagine who weighed one to figure that out. I am sure someone did.

I get excited when I see an 8 or 9 foot one, which are plentiful there. They actually look a lot like big ass catfish when you get close up to their faces, but for some reason are not nearly as ugly as catfish, which kind of gross me out.

Nurse sharks are not very fast, so they mostly eat slow things, but they can hoover up a fish as it passes by. They are pretty laid back, and are said to be nocturnal that are said to hang out in large groups during the day, resting together, but in my experience, there are usually only a few together at a time.