The Thrill Of A Lifetime: Scuba Diving With Sharks

Movies such as "JAWS" and "Open Water" would have you believe that the oceans is littered with sharks, just lurking about waiting to gobble up tasty morsels like Scuba Divers. The truth is Sharks are really quite scarce in the oceans of the world; in fact many species of shark are endangered. A scuba diver faces far more risk from hypothermia, or an incompetent buddy then from a shark. However sharks are fascinating creatures, and if you do want to get up and personal and experience one of the truly great thrills of a lifetime then a Shark Dive is just the way to do it.

Specific Shark Dives are organized at the sites where sharks are known to inhabit or migrate through all over the world. Safety is of utmost concern in a Shark Dive. A Shark Dive will involve the use of State-of -the-Art shark proof cages that float suspended at depth with the diver safely inside. The shark proof cage is lowered into the ocean, so the Scuba Diver may observe the sharks upclose yet safely. Shark proof cages are light weight yet built very strong, and are made to withstand even the impact of a Great White Shark ramming the cage.

One of the best places to experinciece the ultimate Shark Dive experince is on Australia's Great Barrier Reef. A Dive with the great whites near the Neptune Islands off of the Southern Australian Coast could be the crowning acheivemnet of any scuba divers career.

Great white sharks love The Neptune Islands. The Islands present the perfect habitat of rocky outcrops and drop-offs. The cool deep waters provide the great whites with the temperature and depths they thrive on, and the seals and other large fish and marine mammals that live on and around the Islands provide an easily accessible and plentiful food source. The great whites emerge up from the depths to feed and then plunge back down to the deep places where they rule supreme. The Neptune Islands sit on a shelf south east of Port Lincoln, South Australia, and provide just such an ideal habitat. In fact Great Whites are so plentiful around the Neputunes, much of the underwater footage for "Jaws" was shot here. The Islands are quite possibly the single greatest, Great White dive destination in the world.

A little closer to home California has also recently become a top site for shark dives and seeing Great Whites. Over the past 20 years, Great Whites have been returning in large numbers to the waters of California. Researchers have been observing the sharks and they seem to be in regular migratory patterns, and they now know exactly when they are plentiful in the area, making the spot ideal to organize Shark Dives around. Great Whites have returned in appreciable numbers around the Farallon Islands, Ano Nuevo Island, and off San Francisco and Santa Cruz. The sharks make annual appearances to feast on the resident population of seals here. 200 miles south of San Diego is the remote Isla de Guadalupe, also home to a large seal population that also attracts and supports the sharks. Now the area is a magnet not only to marine scientists who come to study the large predators but divers to experience the incredible spectacle of cage diving with great whites.