HAMMERHEAD

Sunday was, in the words of an illustrious MC, Hammertime.

With several volunteers newly arrived, the regular sharkdive was modified and we found ourselves anchored approximately a quarter of a mile west off South Bimini on the edge of the Gulf Stream.  Using several freshly caught barracuda, the wahoo carcasses scavenged from the fishing tournament, and a potpourri of fish heads from the bait freezer back at the lab, Emily, Jim, and Sean began scraping fish and shaking chum bags while holding onto ropes off the back of the boat.

After an hour or so waiting on the boat, I began to get anxious and decided to suit up and try spearing some fish for fresh bait.  I had been in the water only five minutes when, after surfacing, I saw everyone still on the boat quietly suiting up.  Taking this as a good sign, I quickly swapped my spear for my camera and made my way to one of the ropes off the back of the other boat.

Almost immediately after grabbing the rope, I watched, giddy and awestruck, as a large Great Hammerhead swam towards me and made a pass at the bait directly below me.  With the bait sitting on the bottom, barely twenty feet below the surface, I spent the next thirty minutes with a front row seat to a marine display of sheer evolutionary perfection.  The shark made numerous circles and passes at the bait, occasionally disappearing into the blue of our underwater horizon only to return a minute later as an ominous shadow growing steadily into that streamlined, iconic shape that I feel so fortunate to have witnessed.  I put a video I took on Youtube under the name "Baiting in a hammerhead 2/21/2010"  and put a link to it on the blog at the top right, but let me know if you have trouble finding it.

While some of you might be reading this thinking we're crazy, all I can say is that the feeling of being in the water with sharks, especially one as elegant and powerful as a hammerhead, is a drug; an adrenaline rush-filled wave of excitement that leaves you wanting more.  I think it was this mutual feeling that, once the hammerhead had disappeared for good, compelled us to speed off to the usual sharkdive ground for a quick reef shark encounter.  This time around the reef sharks were definitely bolder and I had to kick probably seven of them to get them to stop swimming between us on the line.

After a late dinner of freshly caught grouper, the epic day ended with celebratory beers down at the bar and left me anxiously awaiting the next time we get the chance to go baiting...