The Big Bities

Sharks?  Yes, there are a few, but very few.  Fishermen can sell the meat for four dollars a pound, so they have been fished out, like all the big fish.  Everyone likes to eat fish!

This fellow was swimming slowly toward me.  I was swimming toward him!  A 'Reef Shark',  C.perezii.
.

 

This is along the drop off in Cane Bay, about 110 feet deep, 33 meters.  I guess the fish was about six to seven feet long, two meters.  From these photos, I identified him/her in Paul Humann's  Reef Fish Identification book.

.He turned almost immediately when I saw him.

.

And he swam out to sea, still at a leisurely pace.  I was paddling madly by this time, trying to keep up to get photos.

This is about the fifth shark I've seen here, in twenty years, and hundreds of dives.  Every single time, when I've spotted them, they immediately turned and swam off into the Deep Blue.  There aren't very many sharks anymore.