The Adventure Begins

There is no briefing when we arrive at the unnamed dive site a half-mile of South Bimini, a one-hotel spit of land in the Bahamas. But this morning started differently. A Brazilian film crew had asked Neal Watson Jr., owner of Bimini Scuba Center, to ferry them out to collect filler footage of local color. They wanted to record the acres of mangroves that make this island — a sand patch smack amid the Gulf Stream — a hotbed for shark encounters. They also wanted stock footage of chumming. And so, machete in hand, Watson chopped mahimahi heads and bonita, sending blood and a few small bits overboard — an amuse-bouche.

Typically, feeding hour for the great hammerheads is 2 p.m. It has been for the past two years, ever since the area just in front of Bimini Sands Resort & Marina trickled into the mainstream as a known hammerhead-aggregation site January through March. Before that, it was where Grant Johnson and Katie Grudecki went when their shifts finished at the Bimini Biological Field Station Foundation — aka Sharklab. On a lark one day at dusk in 2003, they dropped anchor just outside the harbor and did what Watson is doing now: They baited the water. They figured that if Caribbean reef sharks, lemons and so many other species filtered into the marina to sniff out entrails tossed dockside from the big-game business, then so would hammerheads. It was almost too easy. Every day during season for the next 11 years, the anvil-lobed predators appeared without fail.

The hammers have been conditioned for afternoon handouts, but today when Watson rang the lunch bell just after sunrise, they showed up. Every animal is an opportunist.

When the film crew spied dark figures circling above the white sand 20 feet below, they too saw an invitation. Tanks on, they jumped, ready to load up on close-ups.

That was hours ago. Since then, my plane touched down and Johnson met me at the Bimini Sands Resort & Marina dock behind the wheel of a Boston Whaler, ready to carry me to the action. The Brazilians are still under because the setup is simple. Dive God, the 42-foot Newton belonging to Bimini Scuba Center, is loaded with tanks. When you surface from a dive, you swap gear onto a fresh tank and continue the experience. With a depth of 20 feet, nitrogen loading isn’t an issue. And so dive briefings fall by the wayside because the diving is rather simple — and also because the hammerhead scene on Bimini attracts a certain clientele. The shark tattoos, ball caps and stickers on Pelican cases all speak to the countless shark dives these people collect. For a certain crowd, shark encounters are anything but a one-and- done experience; they become hooked, always wanting the next, the bigger, the newer, the more adrenaline pumping. Right now, Bimini is all of that.

“Ready?” Johnson stretches into a camouflage wetsuit. With his lanky frame and shaved head, he looks like an Olympic swimmer.

Before I can answer, he hands me a stick — a white PVC pipe the length of a golf club.

“You’ll need this.” He says it’s to help me stay in position. There’s a steady current typically flowing north to south.

This isn’t my first shark-diving rodeo, but it’s the first time I’m handed a stick. In the past, I’ve been armed with only a GoPro camera when swimming with oceanic whitetips and Caribbean reef sharks. Whereas most divers wall themselves behind giant cameras, the GoPro is small — like poking a bear with a Q-tip. Something tells me I’m going to be grateful for the PVC.

In the water, Johnson and Watson stand on either end of the seven kneeling divers. Their hands sheathed in fish-filleting gloves, they pull chunks of fish from buckets, launching them into the water column in time for shutters to capture open jaws.

I’m not thinking about a shot, but rather, how odd it is that I’m within elbowing distance of this fish, one that normally requires epic journeys to encounter. The black of its eye seems impossibly large, somehow cartoonish. That downturned mouth never closes — like the maw of Cookie Monster. They’re funny in a way, all googly-eyes and curiosity. But as the dive clock ticks on, they alter their approach. They are, after all, sharks. They had trotted slow circles just in front of us, as if we were judges at the Westminster Kennel Club. But now, they buck that pattern. A fat female skates toward us, head-on.

Before I decide what to do with my PVC stick, the diver next to me stands. Gripping his camera, he swings it like a shield, guiding the hammerhead up overhead. And I like it. It’s a reminder of its power. I feel small under the slick belly of its 700 pounds.

The Uninvited Guests

Only on the surface do I learn that the change in the hammerheads’ behavior can’t be chalked up to “sharks will be sharks.” In the distance, treading that line between sight and invisibility, were three bull sharks.

We didn’t invite them. But it’s a free ocean, and the boat anchored down-current from us knows that.

The anchored vessel is still there the next day when we return — and so are the bull sharks, now in greater numbers.

Johnson and Watson figure aloud that this other boat must be chumming around the clock.

“Bull sharks don’t hang around unless they’re fed,” Watson says.

His team is careful not to encourage the bulls. By discriminately hand-feeding hammerheads, they send a message of who is welcome at their dive site.

“It’s a numbers game,” Watson says. “If there are two or five hammerheads here at the same time, there are 30 bull sharks in the area. The hammers can easily get outnumbered.”

And when that happens, the hammers become ghosts. They are known to be skittish, elusive. Says Watson: “They want conditions to be the way they want them. They’re pickier than bulls.”

That’s the thing about wild-animal encounters: It’s a fine balance between what’s organic and what can be controlled. This area had been a quiet gathering ground for hammerheads for more than a decade. In a hot YouTube minute, it’s become the go-to spot for leagues of spectators. It’s on the verge of becoming something else. Some guests like seeing bull sharks and will pack planes to see them. Perhaps that will be Bimini’s next claim to fame. Everyone — animal and handler — is figuring out what the show is going to look like.

But for now, it’s about the hammerheads — one of nature’s oddest designs with a beauty that needs no explanation.

NEED TO KNOW

When to Go: Hammerheads are in the Bimini area December through mid-April; January through March is peak season.

Dive Conditions: Winter is traditionally the roughest time 
of year. Watson recommends that divers allow a two- to three-day window in case conditions get blown out.
If a cold front, aka nor’easter, swings through, seas can become too rough.

Operators: Bimini Scuba Center (biminiscubacenter.com) offers afternoon shark-diving trips; the boat departs at 11 a.m. or noon. Depending 
on when the hammerheads appear, divers can have five hours of in-water viewing — or less if the sharks don’t show until 5 p.m. Watson’s operation supports Sharklab’s research, donating tanks, gear and boats to its efforts. Plus, $10 of each diver’s daily fee is given to the lab.

Price Tag: Bimini Scuba Center charges $250 for an afternoon of diving. One-bedroom condos at Bimini Sands Resort and Marina (biminisands.com) start at $260 per weekend night.

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