Sharkbait
Ocean Explorer

Leonard was waiting for me as I stepped on board. “Your cabin is this way,” he said. We went down a level, passing the galley and crew’s mess to enter a long hallway with doors on both sides. “Women’s bathrooms and shower are here,” he said as he passed the door. “Navy showers only; you get yourself wet, do the scrubbing with the water off, then rinse at the end,” he said. “No more than thirty seconds of water use total.”

“I understand,” I said as he stopped in front of a door with my name on it. The cabin was the size of a small closet. It had a few drawers for gear under a single bed, a sink and mirror, and a desk that could fold-down while you sat on the bed. It was big enough for a laptop, and there were power and internet cables nearby. A porthole about eight inches wide gave a glimpse of the outside. “Cozy,” I said.

“Most of us spend our free time in the crew’s mess or topside,” he said. “Speaking of which, let’s finish the tour and get up there for the safety brief.” There wasn’t much below us I needed to see; engine rooms and storage compartments mostly. On the main deck was the diving and research gear, and the next level up was the bridge deck. The ship carried a large davit on the back, which was an inverted “U” shape secured with joints to the stern, and equipped with hydraulic rams. It was able to lower a cradle into the water to support a twenty-foot shark and raise it to the deck so the researches could access the animal safely. Shark cages were folded and lashed to the rails, and rows of scuba tanks and a compressor were just aft of the superstructure. Two small remote-operated underwater vehicles sat in cases near the bow. In all, it was a capable research ship.

The crew and production team gathered for the safety brief before getting underway. Captain Steuben “Stubby” Merrill led the brief with Leonard pointing out the equipment. There were life rafts on each side, lifejackets, rescue lines, throw rings, and a review of line safety. “Never put a part of your body between a line and a fixed object, or step into a loop that could tighten or pull you overboard,” he said. “Just like divers, carry a knife when you are up on decks, and pay attention to what is going on around you.” The two went over procedures for man overboard and lifeboat stations, and when there were no questions, he dismissed us in preparation for getting underway.

Doctor John Holliday was the expedition leader, and he pulled me aside. A renowned shark researcher in his early forties, his distinctive white beard made him look like Captain Ahab. “The team will be meeting in thirty minutes to go over the expedition strategy. It’s down in the crew’s mess,” he said.

“I’ll be there. Thank you for having me along, Doctor Holliday. It’s a great honor to be part of your team. I’ve watched your work for years.”

He gave a quick laugh. “Doc or John, please. Your producer looks like he needs to talk. I’ll see you soon.”

Erik Johnston was there when I turned around, along with two camera operators. I signed the same consent form the crew had signed, giving the Discovery Channel my permission to be seen in the documentary. “This won’t do,” he said as he looked at my cargo shorts and T-shirt. “Get a bikini on with a shirt, and don’t forget sunblock. I don’t want you red as a tomato by day two. We’re going to start filming as we pull out, so hurry.”

They were paying the way, and they knew the deal with Bodyglove was helping to finance the documentary, so I did what they said. I changed into a scuba-style bikini in the tiger-shark patter, with a matching Bodyglove scuba shirt over it, and boat shoes. I pulled my hair back into a ponytail and came back on deck in time. The cameramen took shots of us as I helped retrieve the lines, and we got underway. I wanted to work hard and fit in, and Leonard was happy to teach me as we worked together.

I spent some time on the main deck before Erik told me to join the Captain on the bridge for more shots. Captain Stubby was friendly, explaining what was going on as he piloted the ship out of the harbor and out to sea. We were targeting areas of the Cape with large seal populations. The Great Whites had been returning here each summer for the past four decades, as the seal populations exploded. Their numbers were so high now that some were pushing to remove Federal protections on them.

In addition to Great White Sharks, the Cape area had other shark species. The basking shark, a filter feeder sometimes mistaken for a Great White, was an occasional resident. Shortfin mako sharks fed on open-water fish and blue sharks are in deep waters. The Porbeagle shark is the only year-round resident, often found in groups and reaching up to ten feet. The distinctive white spot on the back of their rounded-top dorsal fin helped with identification. There were also spiny dogfish, with their long, narrow snouts and white spots. Common in shallow waters, they were small sharks up to five feet long.

The cameramen shot everything that was going on, some of which might make it into the show as background. They also installed fixed cameras on the bridge, overlooking the bow and stern, on top of the davit arm, and in the crew’s mess. Only the cabins and bathrooms were off-limits to filming according to the contracts. “We will have thousands of hours of footage by the end of this expedition. Digital storage is cheap, missing something is expensive,” Erik said.

There were three groups of people on the boat. The boat crew consisted of Captain Merrill, First Mate Wood, Engineer Marcus Marconi, Chef Dee Boyar, and deckhand Connor McCloud. The Discovery Channel team had five people; all four cameramen were qualified divers and would alternate off-camera and safety diver work. The scientific crew, led by Doctor Holliday, included four male and two female graduate students. Doctor Gianna Goodwin, a fifty-year-old veterinarian who specialized in shark species, rounded out the group. I went down with the cameramen to the crew’s mess for the expedition brief.

None were my mate.

The expedition plan had three parts. “The first five days will be for Great White tagging. We will use chum to bring them in, baits on barrels to catch them, then haul them into the cradle and bring them on board. Our goal is two a day, measured, blood sampled, and tagged. We’ll also fit them with the detachable fin cameras before we release them.” The ‘fin cams’ had come a long way since the days of attaching a GoPro. Now, they would record video, depth, and temperature information for a week before automatically detaching and floating to the surface, where a beacon helped us replace them. “This is first so we can follow the tagged fish later, and we have time to recover the fin cams.”

“I’d like to keep Vicki in view when the sharks come on board,” Erik said.

“We’ll assign her to the water pump,” Doc replied. “Your job will be to put the pipe in the shark’s mouth that pushes seawater over her gills. Try not to lose a hand while doing it.”

“I can handle it,” I said.

For the second five days, the expedition will focus on getting footage of the Great White populations in action off the seal-covered beaches. We would be doing a lot of diving in the cages, documenting the sharks as they stalk and attack. “We’re using our autonomous cages for this work,” Doc Holliday said. “Two divers will be in each of four cages, at depths between fifteen and eighty feet. One camera operator with one expedition crew will be in each. Vicki, I know you have the dive qualifications, but you’ve been in shark cages before?”

“Yes, a few times off California,” I said.

“Brian, you will brief her on the safety diver responsibilities and how our new cages work when we put them together. Erik, make sure she’s paired with your most experienced cameramen.” Brian was a grad student with curly brown hair and a deep tan. He didn’t look like he was happy with the assignment. Carl Harris, who had two decades of experience filming underwater, was thrilled. He knew that being with me would mean more of his footage would make the final cut. “We will use the tank arrays in the cages to get three hours of dive time, and we’ll dive three times a day. Unlike the shark tours, we won’t be chumming to bring them close. We want to catch them feeding on the seals using their natural behaviors.” That was a LOT of time underwater, and I couldn’t wait.

“The third part is the filler, and we’ll use this in bad weather. We’ll move into sheltered, shallow waters, free-diving or scuba diving, and tag smaller species using the clamp-on tags provided by Vicki’s team.” Some of the guys groaned at this; the glory was in the twenty-footers, not a four-foot shallow-water shark.

“It’s easy to do with a pole, and it’s fun,” I said.

“We will attach cameras to the poles and masks for this part,” Erik said.

“Lots of dive time when we otherwise would be out of action,” Doc said. Shallow-water diving didn’t have rest restrictions to it, so you could change tanks and go back in.

“We arrive at the first tagging area in four hours,” the Captain said. “Get your gear ready, and lunch is at eleven.”

Sally, one of the grad assistants, took me under her wing and showed me how the tagging process went. A Kevlar-reinforced sling lined the bottom of the J-shaped shark cradle, the supports to the outside. “Once the shark has exhausted itself against the barrels, we use the winch and this pulley to bring them headfirst into the sling. Cradling is the most dangerous part for both shark and human, as they could panic and thrash about. To prevent that, we let it fight until it’s barely moving, then we loop a line around the tail and control it from this side,” she said.

“That could take a while with a big shark,” I said.

“It can be hours of waiting, but there’s no other way. Once we get it in the sling, the davit lifts it out of the water and sets it on the desk. Your job is important; getting water over the gills will minimize stress and thrashing while we are doing our other work. We all have jobs; measuring, blood samples, attaching the satellite tracker, attaching the camera. Our goal is for the animal to spend less than a minute out of the water. To do that, we train like a NASCAR pit crew. Since you are new, you get the easy part. Get the PVC pipe into its mouth and turn the valve to start the water flow. Keep the pipe in until the shark is out of reach.”

“Sounds easy enough.”

“You’re going to get wet, which is one reason Erik wanted you there. Have fun; hopefully, you’ll be up close and personal to some BIG sharks soon.”

We arrived in the first area and set out barrels with drop lines and hooks, starting the process of catching sharks. While we waited, we ran through the process three times using an inflatable shark pool toy. I was glad I was wearing swimwear when I saw just how much water came out of the 3” PVC pipe I was wielding.

I heard a shout from the bridge wing that one of the barrels had a shark. It would go underwater for ten minutes at a time, then pop back up elsewhere. It finally stopped moving an hour later, and we moved in to get it. Leonard snagged the slack barrel line with a boat hook, and they pulled it onto the boat and attached the line over the pulley and to the winch. Every time the shark fought, we stopped bringing it in and waited for it to exhaust itself. Finally, we got it the Great White on the surface. The team got a lasso over the tail and pulled the shark onto the sling. Twenty seconds later, it was on the deck.

I was pushing the plastic tube in between its jaws before it touched down, turning the valve and starting the water flow. The team was poetry in motion as it worked on the twelve-foot-long male. I listened as team members called out measurements to the recorder, and as they reported tasks complete. The tag was last to finish, needing a hole punched in the dorsal fin to attach it. “CLEAR,” Doc said, and the davit began to raise. I pulled the tube out when the shark reached shoulder height and turned off the water. We watched as the cradle submerged, and the shark swam off, disappearing back into the depths.

It was SUCH a rush.

“Nice job, people,” Doc said as the davit raised again. “We’ve got another on a barrel already.”

I was having the time of my life.