Just got home from diving, it was a deeper one, 260 feet. The whole time I was crinkle crinkle crinkling on my water bottle and all of a sudden I hear “Muah! Muah!” (that’s what it soounds like when my buddy is yelling Mark! Mark! underwater.) I look and he’s pointing down. Guess what it was? Yep, a shark. It was a maybe 5 foot grey reef shark, no big deal. He never came very close. In fact he stayed below us the whole time, back and forth. He was definitely interested in the crinkling sound.
I filled the bottle up with air again and brought it to the surface. I don’t think it will ever explode, I think it can go up to outer space and still hold the air in it. We opened it on the boat and it sounded like opening the valve on a scuba tank. It took a full second for the air to come out. I filled it at 260 and took it to 200 and had to let some air out because it wouldn’t crinkle anymore. Then I brought it up without letting any more air out. 200 feet is 7 atmospheres. When I brought the bottle to the surface, it was at 1 atmosphere, so there was a difference of 6 atmospheres, That means there was about 88 PSI in the bottle. If I had left it full from 260 feet, there would have been about 118 PSI in the bottle at the surface. Hmmm, maybe I could get one to burst…
Anyway, the crinkling the bottle thing seems to work, the shark was definitely interested in the sound. I think they like it cooler than it is here. I had 86 degees F most of the dive and 84 at the deepest depth. I bet those sharks are staying down deeper where it is cooler.
Here’s a picture of me before we got in the water today. I love this wetsuit because the zipper is in the front. I’ve had it forever, it used to be dark blue, almost black. It used to have long legs but I cut them off.
I’m a metric guy, and I never bothered to do the conversion when you were talking about the water temp last time. 84 F is 28.8 C!That’s rediculous. We rarely get air temperatures of that. The water temp I usually dive in is 12 C and at depth it’s probably 4 or 5 C. I can see why you would overheat even in a thin short suit.Do you think all sharks are attracted to the crinkle sound?I know there are six-gilled sharks on the coast of BC which I dive once a year or so, but I’ve never seen one.
Wow! So if your dive buddy is right and with the 8 out of 10 bottle call, you’ve got another seven sharks to see!Love the playing with the air and bottle, would polystyrene cups shrink at that depth?
Styrofoam compresses with depth, but doesn’t expand back when it comes back up. Yeah, 7 more in a row!Theres a guy who fishes here off the main wall who supposedly pulled a six gill shark up from the deep.
I’ve talked to you about the whole shark thing when you dive before and it continues to baffle me that you WANT to see a shark and be near them. I’d love to go diving sometime but I know I would NOT be caring a bottle to make crinkling sounds with me! 🙂 I’m glad you enjoy diving so much. Keep posting the pictures – they’re great!
sorry – can’t type to today, meant to say “carrying a bottle”
I cannot imagine what it is like to see a shark swim so closeby me. That’s a great photo of you, by the way!
Well just to spite me because of my last comment the temperature today reached 30 C (86 F). I thought I was going to pass out from the heat. That’s the last time I tempt fate.
That’s a great story about the shark and a great photo to go with it.