OT:Anyone ever hear of divers diving the atolls

[rockmedic109]

Most shark attacks are near the surface. A human swimming generates quite a bit of splashing and thrashing that simulates a prey that is wounded or otherwise in distress....and thus an easier target.

The main diet {off northern California} of Great Whites is seals/sea lions who are taken on the surface as they come up for air.

[niceguy2005]

ORIGINAL: Speedy

Interesting (I know off topic here though). So sharks don't 'see' divers as food but do swimmers and surfers?

Well, according to Rockmedic they will attack divers also, though I would have to think your odds of being attacked are fairly slim. However, being in the water with a great white would certainly unnerve me. I would probably steer clear of areas that are known for Great Whites.

Put this way I backpack in Wilderness areas all the time. I know there are bears in the wilderness. I have even seen two in the wild. I'm still not overly concerned about bear attack.

[crsutton]

I know I am hijacking this but since we are on the topic. There was a fatal shark attack near my house in Avon NC (Cape Hatteras) about three years ago-shortly after a fatal attack in Virginia beach that same year. It was the first fatality on the NC coast in about 50 years. A young woman was mortally wounded. She and her boyfriend were swimming near a fishing pier (lots of chum) around sunset (prime feeding time) and ole sharky took a bite out of her. It is pretty hard to get attacked by a shark but you might as well be cautious.
 
More tragic than the loss of this poor young woman is that the Chinese love for shark fin soup and the eagerness of American fishermen to exploit this market has depleted the East Coast shark populations by 80-90% in the last decade-with a chain of tragic enviromental disasters resulting. 
 
I am going to Tahiti and New Zealand in September of this year. I am looking foward to my first ever snorkeling experience and perhaps will take some diving lessions as well.

[Reg]

An oldie but a goodie....

Dive Aquamarine Santo - SS President Coolidge

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: niceguy2005
My friends who dive tell me sharks aren't really a problem. Apparently divers don't look like food to them, swimmers are food, surfers are food, not divers. Aren't too many sharks out there that could really eat a person anyway.

LOL tell that to the poor Japanese guy who disappeared off our dive boat on the Great Barrier Reef back in 1992. It was our boats very first dive and it was just a 15 minute equipment check dive and he was never seen again.

He probably got taken by a large Shark since there was no sign of him when we all went searching for him and my search group was circled by several large sharks that hadn’t been in the area earlier.

The Australian navy sent their version of the navy seals out to do some deep water searches with special dive equipment, but not even a small piece of his suit was ever found.

It is also possible he was taken by the current, as the currents were very strong the week we were out and I and my dive partner were pulled out over a mile from the boat in about 3 minutes when we got sucked into a strong current on one of the dives. Being experienced divers, we recognized the problem and surfaced immediately.

An inexperienced diver may have remained down and not surfaced for 20-30 minutes. By then he’d have been so far away there would have been no way for him to find the boat again and finding him would have been a needle in a haystack problem.

Air searches failed to spot him though, so my money leans towards a shark attack, but anything’s possible in this case as no sign of him was ever found.

Shark attacks on divers are very uncommon but not unheard of. I’ve gone on several hundred ocean dives in my life and seen lots of sharks on those dives. I’ve never had any bad incidents regarding sharks however other than this possible attack.

Jim

[LargeSlowTarget]

There are many diving & snorkeling guide books available, quite a few specializing on WWII wreck diving in the Pacific - just google or amazon for them.[/align]

[Rafael Warsaw]

Dive now Work Later Dude!

Do a Big Blue Dive at least once.

[Mark VII]

Go to Guadalcanal! Several sunk ships to dive there. Including two IJN transports in rather shallow water off Guadalcanal. Then near Tugali, I hear there is an American DD in pristine condition, American AO and several Japanese float planes(I think Mavis's) all in diveable deeper water. Up along the Solomon chain there is all sorts of stuff to dive on. While your there you can tour the battlefields on the canal. Depending on their schedules, I know some busy people over there who can help you under water and on the land.

Check tm.asp?m=902875&mpage=1&key=&#902875 for my trip there several years ago. Was a newbe diver then so just did the shallow IJN transports. Easy flight to Henderson from Brisbane. Was only there for 3 and a half days, wish I could of stayed a few more....terry

[Mark VII]

My dive shop is preparing for two trips to Truk (Chuuk these days) and Palau in May of 2009. Check http://www.mtss.net/ and go the travel link for more details. They were at Truk just last year and the ex-owner raved about the trip. I think this next one is like 20 days.

I went on their Fiji dive trip last year and it was so good we are going again in October, this dive shop knows how to do dive trips! As you will see they offer all sorts of packages across the planet and often many of the divers are not from the Middle Tenneesse area.....terry

[USSAmerica]

Wow Mark!  I just caught up on your pics from '05.  Outstanding trip! [8D]

[Mark VII]

Yes, sorta my dream trip since 6th grade when I started reading about military history! The year before that we went to Normandy for 5 days and drove the Market Garden airborne path up to Arnhem but that was photographed on film not digital so no thread on the forum.

ORIGINAL: USS America

Wow Mark!  I just caught up on your pics from '05.  Outstanding trip! [8D]

[niceguy2005]

Thanks for all the info guys...sounds great!

[docpaul]

National Geographic had *President Palmer* diving on the Sara and the Nagato? I think..what was Yammamoto's flagship?  Pretty deep diving..think it's at 160-180ft plus the Sara is pretty tall.  Looked great on TV..has been on lately so it may still be on. Think I saw it on DiscoveryHD but not sure.  Secrets of Pearl Harbor i think.
And I may rather a shark eat me than have an appetizer with my body parts!