[SimeSublime]

*shivers*

[Just your average movie goer]

That is one primitive fear I can really understand. I wouldn't want to do a solo dive in those conditions - you must be a braver man than I am, Jordan.

[SimeSublime]

Not just the sharks, but I find it hard to imagine going in water with the cold temperatures I'm suffering at the moment.

[Just your average movie goer]

Yeah, that's also true. More kudos to Jordan.

[SimeSublime]

SCUBA diving. Have to add that to my list of things to do alongside skydive and see snow.

[Just your average movie goer]

I don't know, Sime.... you'll have to brave the cold if you want to see snow.

[SimeSublime]

I know, its enough to send a man insane.

[Jordan]

That is one primitive fear I can really understand. I wouldn't want to do a solo dive in those conditions - you must be a braver man than I am, Jordan. 

I was with a team. You never dive alone. But when ascending, you get seperated and need to regroup when you hit bottom. It was an advanced dive so we all went down at different times and locations, knowing that we could navigate to a common spot. In this case it was the battle ship, kind of easy to locate eachother.

SCUBA diving is great fun. The fear subsides as soon as you hit the ocean floor. You realize you can breath just fine, and that for the most part, it's extremely peaceful.

[jyd]

unless its at night...when all you can see is pitch black except for the cone created by your flashlight thats scary stuff, especially when you almost collide with a 6 foot baracudda...jesus, but he was a wimp and swam away

edit: see im more than 6 feet...muahaha

This post has been edited by jyd: 02 August 2004 - 11:17 AM

[Jordan]

Night dives are my favorite. I love how the focus of the flashlight picks up the color, while the faint side light shows up only grey.

Octopus come out at night, they are awesome to watch. I grabbed a baby one once. It crushed my hand and then spat ink at me. Good life experience. I will know never to grab a full sized one. It could rip off your mask, regulator and really f'in hurt your body.

[Just your average movie goer]

I can imagine.

Just to steer this back onto shark attacks for a bit, caution is really the biggest factor. I thought about some of the various accounts of shark attacks I heard about during my last years in Australia and they seemed to all have something in common. Perhaps you may work it out.


Case Study 1 - Guy gets killed, swimming at dusk in the Southern Ocean (the part of the ocean that's south of Australia for you Americans who don't distinguish it as an ocean in its own right). Quick facts - sharks are a lot more likely to attack at dusk and dawn than they are during the middle of the day. The Southern Ocean is the biggest hang-out for Great White Sharks in the world.

Case Study 2- Guy gets killed on the Great Barrier Reef (off the northern part of Australia's eastern seaboard for those who don't know the location). Quick facts - the victim was fishing in waist-deep water and tied every fish he caught around his waist. In addition to this, he was fishing at night.


Anyone see the connection between the two cases? I'll give you a hint. It's one word. It begins in "s" and ends in "tupidity."

[barend]

shark repelant: DRY LAND!!!

although that's not really an option here...
we really live in a balanced world...

Australia is not on any fault lines...

but the top 10 deadliest snakes and spiders all live here...

and we got Crocodiles in Queensland and some of Northern Territory I think...

a great collection of great white sharks...

well at least the whole double demerit points took us down from highest easter break road toll!!!

and at least our kids don't go on shooting sprees...
but they're alot tougher...

EDIT: although about 10 fire trucks just went past my office window...
so i guess i'll find out what happened there in about ten minutes.

This post has been edited by barend: 03 August 2004 - 02:48 AM

[Jordan]

Isn't Australia home to the worlds most vicious shark, the Grey Corel Reef Shark?

[Just your average movie goer]

Quite possible... most of the nastiest types of any animal can be found here. I like a Douglas Adams quote on the issue. He said...

"Out of the ten most venomous arachnids on the planet, Australia has nine of them. Actually it would be more true to say that out of the nine most venemous arachnids of the planet, Australia has ALL of them."


I personally think the Tiger Shark is a seriously bad offender among sharks. The thing is actually malicious.

In the early eighties, a fishing trawler with three people capsized and the crew made a make shift raft to get them back to shore. A tiger shark attacked them and one of the crew members was badly bleeding so he gave himself to the tiger shark, sacrificing himself so that it would leave his friends alone.

But the tiger shark still followed the raft afterwards and at 4.00 pm the next day, took another member of the crew. The last member reached an island later in the day where there were several fishing boats anchored and the fishermen said they saw the tiger shark have a go at the last guy as well. Thankfully, he survived.

But I think that kind of behaviour goes beyond something looking for a snack and goes into the territory of really serious maliciousness.

This post has been edited by Just your average movie goer: 03 August 2004 - 04:43 AM

[barend]

the tiger shark has a really abrassive skin too.
if you were to pet it with your bare hand as it swum by, you could easily lacerate your hand.

nasty bastards.