Steve's Shark and Cave Adventure
In 1975 Eugenie Clark established her reputation as a marine biologist when she led a National Geographic expedition to film the sleeping sharks in the caves of Yucatan. Until this time it was generally believed that sharks had to continuously swim to force water through their gills allowing them to breath. Unknown to the world in about 1970 I found a cave full of motionless sharks. I was not a biologist and whereas I had heard the supposed fact that sharks had to always swim and was surprised to find them lying still in a cave, I presumed it was a well known fact. I had to laugh when I later saw the National Geographic discovery.I was on a KSC Barracudas dive trip for a week in the Bahamas. We were north of Andros Island right at the western edge of the Tongue of the Ocean where depths drop precipitously from ten feet to several thousand. I was diving in about eighty feet of water spearfishing for the boat's supper. I suddenly noticed a large grouper swim past me with a chunk torn from its side probably from somebody's blotched spear shot. I followed the injured fish until it disappeared under a coral ledge. I kicked over to the ledge and ducked my head into the foot high opening trying to see the grouper in the almost total darkness. Suddenly I sensed motion on either side of me and withdrew from the hole to see two large eight foot nurse sharks swimming away. This freaked me out a little so I looked up and saw a swimmer snorkling on the surface. I swam up and he said, "What was that all about?", recounting that he had seen me enter the cave and two sharks coming out and disappearing.
Well I figured the sharks were gone so I could go back and finish off that injured fish so I returned to the depths. I again stuck my head in the hole and saw that it extended back beyond where I could see. I also saw my grouper patiently sitting there about ten feet in. I let loose with my spear and made a clean hit all the way through the fish. It thrashed and suddenly pulled off of my spear and disappeared. I couldn't understand this until I saw my barbed spear point resting on the sand about twelve feet inside the cave. It had unscrewed from the spear shaft and the fish had pulled off.
This was my only spear point so I decided I'd try to retrieve it. I started to worm my way into the cave only to discover that the cave roof was too low to allow me and my tank to squeeze in. No problem, I released my tank straps and took off the tank keeping the regulator firmly in my mouth. Now I could slip into the cave with my mask digging into the sand and my back scraping the cave roof. Not too smart, but I was young and indestructible. I got within arm's reach of the spear point, the object of this whole exercise. As I reached out for the point what do I see about a foot beyond the point but a nose and teeth of a shark looking right at me.
Suddenly there was a great deal of turbulence and the sand swirled causing visibility to go to zero. There was no way I could move being wedged in so tightly. I waited to die. Gradually the sand settled and I could see again and I was still in one piece. The spear point was still where it was the last time I had seen it, but now instead of the shark's snout, I saw the long curved tail next to the point. I thought, what the heck I've made it this far inched in the final foot and grabbed the spear point from under that shark's tail.
Now all I had to do was figure out how to extricate myself as I was pretty well wedged in. As I turned my head hither and yon, I was amazed to see several other sharks sitting motionlessly in the recesses of the cave. I slid myself slowly backwards pulling my tank along with me and managed finally to get out of the cave. In retrospect how stupid the whole thing was. I was buddyless and could have easily snagged someting on the cave ceiling that would have caused me to be stuck until I ran out of air and drowned or became shark food. I wouldn't have returned to the boat and being totally out of sight in the cave probably never would have been found. Another mystery of the Bermuda Triangle.
But it all worked out and I kept that old rusty spear point in my tackle box for years as a talisman of my good luck on that day. One day years later another diver needed a point and I reluctantly lent him that one. Again it unscrewed from his shaft and this time was lost forever. I was crushed to have it gone, but obviously I still have the memory.Steve Coester 2001
