SHARKS

It turns out sharks have been lurking beneath the Finnmarken’s hull during daylight hours, while making a spectacular emergence at night. Yesterday evening I decided to take a stroll around deck five and check out the waning moon and stars, when to my surprise I came across close to 30 Grey and Black-tipped Reef Sharks herding bait fish in the lights of the loading barge tied to the ship. Reefers in general are harmless to humans, both the shark and the herb (although a bad batch can make you pretty ill I’m told, I don’t really touch the stuff), with fish and cephalopods comprising their main diet. However, they will make a meal out of the drifting bodies of those unfortunate souls lost at sea, especially in open water beyond the reef. So I’ll keep that in mind when hopping onto the transfer vessels.

For some reason fish are attracted to light, which in turn attracts their predators. As I was filming the dozens of circling sharks, a Bottlenose Dolphin swam into the halo of light from the dark beyond. It weaved through the reefers before stopping at the base of the loading platform with its rostrum pointed right at an unsuspecting fish. Realizing the danger it now faced (possible picking up on the pressure waves of the dolphin’s echolocation), the fish became motionless and stunned at the surface; probably thinking ‘shit now what’? It seems we had a showdown on our hands. The dolphin charged but the fish skipped to safety, or at least back into the shadows with the dolphin trailing close behind. We will never know what became of the poor bastard. I have the whole thing on video, really good show.

 Even lightning fast squid were getting in on the feeding frenzy, shooting towards the bait from the murky depths, flashy red and white, before disappearing once again. There was a whole shoal of squid amongst the chaos; in fact I think the dolphins were targeting them more than the fish.