Scuba Diving
Adventurer’s Bucket List: Night Diving With Sharks
Scared of sharks? Fear of the dark? This one-of-a-kind dive operation gives you the chance to overcome two phobias at once, while offering a serious hit of adrenaline.
“It goes against all of our instincts to jump into cold, black water at night, where we know there are 50 sharks,” said Stuart Cove, founder of the scuba diving center bearing his name, located on the island of New Providence in the Bahamas.
But that fear — that thrill — is precisely why Cove believes every scuba diver should add this experience to the top of their bucket lists.
In fact, you don’t need to be a certified diver to swim with some 20 to 50 Caribbean reef sharks 35 feet beneath the ocean surface. All you need is an adventurous spirit. That, and, if you’re not already an Open Water Diver or higher, you’ll need to complete a scuba dive earlier in the day with an instructor before wetsuiting up at night.
Shark handler Liz Parkinson feeds a reef shark at night
© Stuart Cove's Dive Bahamas
But, to experience this evening rush, a visit to the Bahamas is a must, as Stuart Cove’s Dive Bahamas is presently the only dive center in the world taking paying guests to dive with sharks at night.
The experience starts when night falls, draining all light from the sea. Shark handler Liz Parkinson says to expect black water.
“And when I say black,” Parkinson said. “I mean it’s hard to see your hand in front of your face.”
Divers with underwater lights form a circle 20 feet from the feeding spot
© Stuart Cove's Dive Bahamas
All divers borrow a dive light to illuminate their underwater surroundings, but each guests’ awareness is limited to whatever the light can hit at any given moment. In other words, prepare to be surprised.
“You can’t see where the sharks are coming from,” said Parkinson. “All of a sudden, you have all these faces in front of you — the sharks are coming in from all different angles.”
Oh, and their behavior is crazier at night. But not because they’ve suddenly become blood thirsty.
Stuart Cove gets encircled before opening up the food box
© Stuart Cove's Dive Bahamas
“They come in really fast and ram into you because they’re blinded by the lights,” Cove said. “They just want to eat, and they can’t see.”
Granted, the sharks only bump the feeders — never the guests, all of whom sit 20 feet away from the bait box. It all adds up to an electricity that everyone in the water can feel. Further dialing up the experience is the knowledge that anything could appear from the darkness.
“I’m always a little bit anxious at night,” said Cove, who’s been diving in the dark for greater than 30 years. “You don’t know what lurks beyond the light. We do have tigers down here.”
The sharks behavior amplifies at night because they're blinded by the light
© Stuart Cove's Dive Bahamas
By tigers, he means tiger sharks, which, along with hammerheads, are seen on occasion during daytime dives. That’s what makes the ocean wild. A place where anything can happen.
Including fairy dust — which is perhaps a bit less trippy when referred to by its scientific name: bioluminescence.
“We’ve been down there with amazing displays of bioluminescence, like in the movie ‘Fantasia,’” Parkinson said. “I’ve signaled to divers to cut the lights, so that we’re in perfect darkness. And then, when I fed the bait, you could see the movement of my arm as green light, and this green, glowing shark speeding closer.”
She paused. “That was pretty magical.”