In April 2011, I again dived with Beqa Adventure Divers and again dived at the Pearl South Pacific. I had been asked by Michael Lynch and Edward Radford of Ultramarine Films Pty Limited and Executive Producer and Producer of “Shark Harbour” to be Ultramarine’s Stills Cameraman on this documentary, set to be broadcast by National Geographic US and the Australian Broadcasting Company. This follows a specialist ‘Shark Research Team’ as they conduct the most comprehensive and technologically advanced study of sharks that’s ever been undertaken in Sydney’s waters and is focused on Bull Sharks. Unfortunately film cameraman Jon Shaw had been unable to get any good film footage of Sydney’s wary bull sharks. Jon had got footage of Bull Sharks on hooks and lines from places close to Sydney but time was running out for the main underwater footage so Plan B was to film them in Fiji instead with the help of Beqa Adventure Divers. My main role was to take stills images of the three day shoot, the photographs to be used for future publicity of the production and possible inclusion on any DVD.

Day One was pretty pressurised for Jon. With no time for error, Jon was concerned that not all of video camera equipment might have survived the 4 hour flight from Sydney. It had. Then he was worried that he might not see any Bull Sharks. But as soon as we descended to the sea bed, they were everywhere. On the second dive, Jon was given a minder/bodyguard so that he could concentrate on just filming the close Bull Shark passes and indeed his minder pushed one off the front of his camera.  My concern was entirely different - I simply had to ensure that my flash did not appear in any video footage. After all, if the film footage was not good, there would be no need for any stills images. So I had to be very restrained, very restrained indeed - which certainly did not come easily! Especially whenever a Bull Shark passed close to me and I knew I must not take a shot.

Day Two. To begin with Jon felt he was a little over-ambitious, trying to get too close to the Sharks, causing them to back off a little bit. He wanted to try and film them without any sea bed showing so that it should hopefully look more like Sydney however he was powerless to prevent any fish life that would not normally be seen in Sydney Harbour appearing in shot. Again frustratingly I had to take photographs very sparingly. In the evening Jon and I reviewed his footage. He had all the basic film footage that Ultramarine Films needed which meant that he could risk being more ambitious on our final day and hopefully get some out-of-the-box close encounters.

Day Three began by Jon trying to re-enact a Shark baiting scene from Sydney with a close-up of a Bull Shark taking bait from a line. A problem was that the dive was at 30 metres and quite dark and it took the Bull Sharks a while to accept this new form of baiting so “Deco” became a real concern for us. Finally a Bull Shark came in close to Jon and took the bait. But it had approached from the wrong angle so Jon could not get the face-on footage he wanted. He tried again in shallower water and this time there were plenty of Bull Sharks. They came in very close to Jon indeed and he got the film he wanted. For the third and final dive, stills photography came to the fore as the priority was now that I take a photograph of Jon with a Bull Shark. But for the first 10 minutes of the dive, the Bull Sharks did not come in close. Perhaps this was because there is normally only two Shark Dives each day. By the time they began to become interested the visibility had dropped badly. I felt more than a little frustrated! But I did not stay grumpy for long. Working with Jon again had been a fantastic experience and I was so pleased for him that he had got the film he needed.

And any time spent with Mike Neumann and Beqa Adventure Divers is fascinating. If you accept the notion that Shark feeding dives turn divers into ambassadors for Sharks and can encourage the local population to protect Sharks for their own financial well good, you might support shark feeding. The actions of Beqa Adventure Divers, I believe, makes the argument for this support compelling. In addition to ensuring that every “Shark diver’ contributes funds to support the local community and introducing a local marine reserve where fishing is prohibited, BAD has been at the forefront of scientific research actively developing knowledge of Sharks and in particular Bull Sharks. There is no question that there has been rapid growth of the local Shark population. There had only been 13 months between my first and third trips to Shark Reef Marine Reserve but I have seen the difference for myself.  Critics of Shark feeding suggest that these can increase “shark attacks”.  However, there has been no increase in shark attacks in this vicinity despite such a clearly increasing Shark population.