My buddy Mick Todd and I met up with Andy Murch and his Big Fish Expeditions group in downtown Tokyo and made our way south to Tateyama, a town in Chiba, a Japanese prefecture on Tokyo's eastern outskirts. There we met Kan Shiota owner of BOMMIE Dive Centre and the brains behind The Shark Scramble. This is a shark-feeding dive during which we were to see between 200 to 500 Banded Houndsharks.  Local fishermen had been at their wits end with the Banded Houndshark population who were poaching the fish from their nets but once Kan began organising The Shark Scramble the sharks lost interest in the fishermen’s nets.

My second dive there was my 3000th dive and I must thank Kan, his team and my buddy Mick for making it a very special dive for me. Check out the video of it on my Video page

My camera system had recently been stolen on Vancouver Island and I arrived in Japan with a brand new system. The Nikon D500 proved very different from my stolen D7200 and I made plenty of mistakes as I struggled to master my new camera. I resolved to return with Andy in 2019 for a “re-do”.

While we were there NHK International twice interviewed Andy for Japanese television and I somehow ended up in one of the recordings although I very much doubt that my contribution was ever aired.