Shark feeding

Shark Feeding at Lion’s Head — Maldives, 1984

Lion’s Head in the Maldives has long been famous for encounters with grey reef sharks. Situated beside the deep Vaadhoo Kandu channel, the site is swept by clear ocean water and provides ideal conditions for watching these magnificent predators patrol the reef. Hélène and I were fortunate enough to dive there in the days when shark feeding was still permitted. On 6 August 1984, we left Fiha Lohi by dive boat with our German divemaster, Lutz Hagemann, heading for Lion’s Head. The rocky outcrop projects into the 4.5-kilometre-wide Vaadhoo Kandu, where the channel drops to around 500 metres.

A gently sloping ledge at about ten metres provided the perfect place for us to settle down and wait. And then the show began. Dozens of grey reef sharks appeared from the deep blue below us. Lutz began feeding them and within moments the water was filled with sharks. They circled closer and closer until the scene developed into a genuine feeding frenzy. I was taking photographs with my underwater camera when one of the sharks came straight towards me. Instead of turning away, it continued — and collided with the dome port of my camera housing.

Now that was an adrenaline rush!

For a few seconds there was very little between me and a grey reef shark except a piece of transparent acrylic. Eventually it was time to surface, but the adventure wasn’t quite over. Because of the heavy swell, our dive boats had moved away from the reef and were waiting roughly a kilometre offshore. So after all that excitement underwater, we still had a considerable surface swim ahead of us.

By the time we finally reached the boat we were exhausted — but absolutely bursting with adrenaline. Everyone started talking at once:

“DID YOU SEE…?”

Of course we had.

It was one of those dives that stays with you for the rest of your life.

What a dive!

Shark Feeding — From Spectacle to Conservation
S
hark feeding in the Maldives became popular during the early years of recreational diving. One of its best-known pioneers was the German underwater photographer Herwath Voigtmann, who worked at Bandos Island Resort. His spectacular encounters with sharks helped make organised shark feeds a major attraction, and several sites throughout the Maldives became known for them, including Lion’s Head in the Vaadhoo Channel. Voigtmann became famous for his extraordinarily close encounters with sharks, sometimes feeding them by hand while photographers and divers watched from nearby. At the time, such dives were regarded as one of the great underwater spectacles of the Maldives. By the time Hélène and I visited Lion’s Head in 1984, shark feeding was still part of the diving experience. We thought little of it then — it was simply one of those extraordinary things you could encounter while diving in tropical waters.

Over the years, however, attitudes changed. Divers and marine biologists became increasingly aware that feeding wild sharks could alter their natural behaviour. Sharks could learn to associate divers and boats with food, while repeated feeding might disturb their normal hunting and movement patterns. What had once been regarded primarily as an exciting underwater spectacle increasingly came to be viewed as unnecessary human interference with the marine environment.

For me, that changing perspective is also part of the history of diving. The way we dive has changed, just as our understanding of the underwater world has changed.Today, watching a grey reef shark emerge naturally from the blue is surely far more rewarding than attracting one with food. The Maldives hardly needs artificial excitement. Its reefs, channels and drop-offs provide some of the finest opportunities in the world to encounter sharks in their own environment.

Beyond the Sharks

Lion’s Head itself has much more to offer than sharks. To the east of the famous outcrop lies a long section of reef with caves and overhangs, particularly in the shallower water. Lobsters, octopuses, sea anemones, sponges and numerous reef fish inhabit these sheltered areas. Deeper caves and overhangs can also be found farther down the reef, but some of the most beautiful diving is in the relatively shallow water between 5 and 10 metres, where sunlight, coral and marine life combine to create the colourful underwater world for which the Maldives is famous.

And perhaps that is the best way to experience it:
not as an underwater circus, but as one of the world’s great remaining marine wildernesses.

Location

Source shark photo’s: 
Wikipedia (Joi Ito from Inbamura, Japan and Greg Grimes from Starkville, MS, USA) licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.

Wikipedia file, credit