Tigers and Bulls

Michele Hall

Michele and Her Tiger – ©Howard Hall

I’ve only seen two tiger sharks, and I saw them both on the same shark dive. I was diving with Aqua-Trek Beqa, in Pacific Harbor, Fiji where we’d gone to film bull sharks. I saw tigers and bulls, two of the most feared shark species... on the same dive! Despite their size, both seemed fairly harmless. At least at first.

   It was March, 2001. We were in Fiji making the IMAX® film “Coral Reef Adventure” with MacGillivray Freeman Films (MFF). The film depicts the splendor and plights of corals reefs, and features Howard, me and our film crew exploring some of the most beautiful reefs in the South Pacific. We planned to include sharks in the film because they play such an important part in the health of reef ecosystems. Besides, sharks are a great box office draw! Cat Holloway, one of our dive guides from Fiji’s Nai’a Cruises, suggested that we contact Brandon Paige to take us out to film bull sharks on his organized shark dive at Aqua-Trek Beqa.

   The first time we dived with Brandon he explained how he’d received permission from the local villagers to cultivate this dive site as a shark-feed. A portion of the dive’s proceeds goes to the village. The local fish market profits as well when Branson buys their leftover fish heads and carcasses to use for bait. The stuff is called ‘chum.’ This of course is not to be confused with the word ‘chump,’ which is exactly what I felt like as I followed Brandon down the wall, surrounded by fish guts and blood, and a confused profusion of the largest and most aggressive jacks and snapper I’ve ever seen. I was smack in the middle of the feeding setup! At 92 feet I spotted the mooring chain, got my bearings, and began moving up the wall and away from the confusion.

   Brandon has established an elaborate baiting routine for the most diverse shark dive I’ve ever witnessed. He and his dive master Rusi descended to an arena established at 100 feet carrying huge buckets filled with 200 pounds or more of frozen chum. They tied the buckets to a dead coral outcropping and we waited for the scent to leach out and begin attracting the behemoths. We were awestruck when seven species of shark soon appeared! There were white tip reef sharks, black tips, the biggest nurse shark I’d ever seen, grey reefs, a lemon shark, and silver tips. And then what we’d all been waiting for: a bull shark sauntered though the pack, dwarfing the rest. This was the first bull shark any of us had ever seen, Howard included. At 700 pounds, his girth was massive. And soon there were 4 of them. I began to imagine the expression on Greg MacGillivray’s face as we viewed the dailies of this footage when we returned to California. It promised to be an exhilarating sequence in the film.

   Howard moved into position, poised with the IMAX camera. There’s only 3 minutes running time to a roll of IMAX film. At a cost of $3000 to purchase, process and print the 3 minutes, you want to choose your shots well. To change film the camera must be swum to the surface, hoisted back on the boat, then brought back down with the fresh film load, a procedure that takes about twenty minutes. A lot can happen while you’re waiting twenty minutes for the camera to return. Sharks can depart with the flick of a tail. Conditions can deteriorate. You don’t want to waste any shots, roll out, and then left be without a camera while the film is being changed and the really good action is taking place.

   As a bull shark approached him, Howard triggered the run switch which began the flow of film through the camera. I glanced over my shoulder to keep track of the other bulls, and saw them veer off. Looking back toward Howard I saw that they were all leaving! What had happened? He turned off the run switch. After a few minutes, two of the bulls came back into the chum line. Again Howard triggered the run switch. Again, the sharks dispersed, taking the silver tips and grey reef sharks with them. It takes 5 seconds for the camera to accelerate the film to full running speed. By the time Howard was getting an image on film, the sharks had left. We realized we were encountering the same behavior we’d seen at Cocos Island, Costa Rica when we filmed hammerhead sharks for our IMAX film “Island of the Sharks.” The IMAX camera sounds like a chainsaw, spooking the sharks and quickly scaring them off. Lights, camera, action... Zippo... They were gone. So much for my vision of Greg complementing Howard for capturing fantastic bull shark footage for the film.

   Cat, who had encouraged this endeavor, was appalled at what had happened. And Howard took advantage of her concern. He extracted two 4-foot long fish carcasses from the scrap heap and handed them to Cat, indicating to her that she should hold one carcass in each hand with her arms fully extended. Thinking that Howard was serious, she did this while Howard backed up as if to film the sharks when they arrived. Cat stood there like a statue, looking first over one shoulder and then the other, thinking that this was one very bad idea. It took several long moments for her to realize Howard’s joke -- and that the rest of us were doubled over in laughter at the sight! She dropped the carcasses and swam toward Howard shaking her fists, her mask filling with water from laughing so hard. And that was that... We left the next day headed for Nigali Pass to film sea snakes.

   Nine months later, with the filming for Coral Reef Adventure complete, Howard and I returned to Fiji for two weeks of live-aboard diving with Nai’a Cruises. We revisited many of the sites we’d dived while in production, this time using our new high definition video camera to capture footage of Fiji’s incredibly beautiful undersea life for our stock footage library. We filmed reefs of soft and hard corals, ribbon eels, hawksbill turtles, several species of shrimp gobies, octopus, gray reef sharks, blooms of drifting jellies, and more. To add more shark footage to our library, we once again engaged Brandon and Aqua-Trek Beqa, this time with the much quieter HD camera. That’s how I came to find myself face to face with a 14-foot tiger shark.

   We joined a group of sport divers who had signed up for one of Brandon’s regular shark dives. I descended with my Nikonos camera and 15mm wide angle lens to the reef on open circuit with the sport divers. Howard was diving his rebreather and planned to make his much longer dive when we were out of bottom time, remaining there during our surface interval. At the end of my dive, as I ascended from the bait-laden arena, I watched Howard move down the wall with the HD camera.

   Ninety minutes later while descending on my second dive with camera still in hand, I passed Howard as he headed for the shallows to decompress. Using my Ocean Technology Systems comm. unit, I asked him how his dive had gone. Giving me a big okay sign, he said that a number of sharks had come into the bait, including some big bulls. He hadn’t seen any tiger sharks, but he was fairly pleased with the footage he’d captured. Admonishing me to be careful, he watched me drift down toward the action.

   I settled down behind a rock wall Brandon had built to separate divers from sharks. Taking a light meter reading, I adjusted my camera and strobe settings. The current was taking the chum out to sea and visibility was pretty good. These were good conditions for spreading the scent, and my hopes were high for some good action. Suddenly, the current changed and visibility dropped as the chum line washed over us. Within a few moments the current changed again. Visibility improved. And then I saw them. The vertical stripes on their sides made the identification unmistakable. Two tiger sharks were nosing their way through the bait.

   I called to Howard over my comm. and he descended just in time to see them both before the big one swam off. As if reading my mind he said, “This one is about 14 feet long. The other must have been 16 feet!” I was mesmerized and couldn’t take my eyes off her. This 14-footer was so beautiful. She meandered along the sea floor nudging and gently picking at scraps of bait. None of it seemed to interest her very much. It seemed surreal. She reminded me of a puppy using its nose to push a ball along the floor.

   After a moment she took off into the gloom. Howard and I shrugged at each other, as if to say, “Well, that’s that!” But we held our posts with Howard twenty feet to my left. I glanced toward him and saw him scanning the water in my direction, just as the smaller tiger reappeared behind him. She was swimming our way... but Howard was looking in the wrong direction!

   I called to him, “Look over your left shoulder NOW!!! Start shooting NOW!” Howard turned on the camera and swung it to his left. As he did so, the tiger continued to approach. Instinctively I moved my camera into position to take a picture; then I hesitated. If I took a shot, my strobe would flash Howard’s video frame, probably making the footage unusable. But the prospect of getting an image of Howard with his yellow HD camera housing videoing a 14-foot tiger shark was irresistible. I triggered the shutter once, then again as she passed in front of him. She continued in my direction. I took one more shot as she began to change direction, turning toward me -- straight toward me!

   “What do I do next? If I take another shot, my strobe may spook her. Besides, she’s so close she’d be out of focus. Gee, she’s getting really close... Should I hit her with my strobe? I sure don’t want to make her mad. I've discouraged blue sharks by tapping them on the nose with my strobe. Do I dare try that with a tiger? Do I have a choice? She’s not moving that fast, but even a test with that jaw could leave some pretty nasty marks on me. She’s pretty close. Better do something...!”

   All these thoughts went through my head in a split second. As she veered more toward me I extended my arm and tapped her nose with my Ikelite 150 strobe. She turned away, like a child’s battery-operated toy car when it hits a wall. I watched her retreat into the distance, regretting that she hadn’t made another pass. Turning, I saw that Howard had the HD camera pointed in my direction. Reacting to the camera, I looked at the lens, shrugged my shoulders, and giggled into my regulator.

   Thank goodness Howard had captured me on video with the tiger -- my flashing strobe was justified in the scene. He couldn’t possibly be mad at me! After all, if I hadn’t called to him on the comm., he wouldn’t have known to turn toward the shark and begin shooting. My worry now -- how would I tell my mom that I’ve been face-to-face with a tiger? She’ll never again believe me when I tell her not to worry.