GREAT SHARK DIVES
AT WALKERS KEY

Walkers Key is located in the northern Bahamas. It is a hundred acre island dedicated to fishing and diving. The main diving attraction of Walkers is the Shark Rodeo where a 55 gallon chumcicle is dropped in front of the divers and into the waiting jaws of a hundred or more willing sharks. After the sharks settle down from the initial frenzy, the divers are allowed to mingle as long as they stay at a respectable distance from the food. Sharks swim over you, under you, behind you, beside you, and I had one swim between my legs. It is great fun, and the sharks seem to enjoy it as much as the divers. I've been there four times and had great diving each and every trip. Divemasters Barry and Garry make sure that your trip is what you expected. They are as professional as they come in this business.

Getting there is easy. It is a short low level flight from Ft. Lauderdale. Be sure to look out of the plane as it crosses the Bahama banks. If the air is clear and the water calm, it looks like there is no water and the bottom is a strange landscape. On two of my trips our group flew on a seaplane while on the other two we landed on the Walkers airstrip.

My best dive ever was at Walkers Key, and it did not involve a shark, but something much smaller.

The view from the hotel window. One word of caution, do not hang light weight cloth items on the rail. Janie saw a bird take away a pair of brightly colored undershorts for its nest. We never told the guy who took his underware but noticed that he looked at his roommate a little funny all week. I bet that nest was brightly colored. Here we have a profusion of silversides. They can be found in many of the caves and crevices in the reefs around Walkers Key. I love silversides for several reasons. They are part of the bottom of the food chain for the larger fish you see at Walkers Key. Another is the way they flow around you like a pool of mercury. Lastly they liven up some of the dark pictures in caves and wrecks.



Sharks sharks sharks and more sharks. This is of course, is the main reason for coming to Walkers Key. Surrounded by all sizes and types of sharks. You not only encounter the mass of sharks in the feeding frenzy, but there are sharks to be seen on almost every dive. On one dive, I looked out into the distance and saw a huge hammerhead coming directly toward me. I could see his head, mouth. and racks of teeth. The tail swung back and forth behind him. About five feet away he stopped on a dime, then turned away. He realized I wasn't a turtle. I was sure glad that he figured it out in time. By the time he left, I realized that I had my camera with me. Wonder why I hadn't thought to take his picture or video when this was going on. Hmmmm.

Here is divemaster Barry with a "regular" at the feeding station. Barry is one of the best divemasters I have met. He has an infectious sense of humor and is an easygoing but thoroughly professional man. He makes great videos of the shark dive for you to take home if you do not have a video camera. At his low prices for a really professional video, you should leave the camera at home and enjoy the dive with your personal videographer there getting the shots. I got his video to give me the footage of me that never is taken to add into my video. It was like having a second camera crew. Another advantage of getting his shots is that he goes in very close to the chumcicle where you and I are not allowed to go. He shoots on digital tape so the images are great and uses a professional editing bench.

My daughter Janie swims on another part of the reef in our year 2000 trip. She had been chomping at the bit to get to Walkers Key since her younger brother went in 96. This trip was for her. She was really ready to be there and get in the water with all those sharks. She was so focused on the shark diving, I am not sure that she even remembers any other dives.

One warning, do not leave your shorts drying on the rail from your room. Janie watched a seagull swipe some colorful shorts from the next balcony. Bet that nest was really the envy of all the flock.

Feeding seagulls from the balcony of a comfortable but basic air conditioned hotel. There is excellent food but a limited menu. I really like there cracked conch and am drooling thinking about it. Breakfast is in the main restaurant, lunch is near the dock, and dinner and entertainment is back in the main building. There is a small but well equipped dive shop. For after the dive, there is a nice freshwater pool with an adjoining hot tub. If you enjoy deep sea fishing, that is an additional option.

Not all is sharks. There are some soft corals. Overall the coral reef is not as good as many dive locations. This is because natives ran the lobsters out of holes with bleach. This has created many dead areas. That practice is supposedly over now but the results linger on. There are a lot of other critters around. We do go there for the sharks, don't we. On one trip I took my underwater scooter. There was nurse shark tooling along in the coral crevices. I fell in behind him and followed him for at least fifteen minutes like Charlie Brown tracking the Red Barron. When he got tired of the game, he flipped his tail and left me standing still.

A pod of free wild dolphins making a visit. They came zooming up, their arrival announced by clicks and squeals. I stood still in the water and they came all around me, checking me out. It was a thrill even though I had worked with captured dolphins a number of times over the years. When the wild ones visit, it is their choice to spend the time with you. While I know that dolphins are not the "gentle sweet things" portrayed in the media, they are neat. I often wonder for every person that dolphins pushed ashore, how many were pushed out to sea.

Don't be disturbed if a semi tame cuda gets up close and personal. This guy was hanging around near the surface at the beginning and end of almost every dive. I suspect that some one feeds him. I have it on good authority that he eats tuna fish from a can. Wonder who figured out that one. In my first trip Lam Ngo was with us and he was quite disturbed by the cuda who circled him constantly at the surface. It was his first real tropical dive trip. Sharks and cudas and turtles--Oh My.

During one of my visits to Walkers, there was an Italian diver there who was an intense photographer. We had a great time together...there is no language barrier between underwater photographers. Here he is getting one of the shots of a lifetime as he encounters a school of Atlantic Spadefishes that swam in circles around him. He was out of film only five minutes into the dive but quite happy. Bella, Bella.