Sharks and Andi on Television

Everyone who is able to receive German television SAT.1 and was still awake at 0:10 a.m. might have recognized a tiger shark and me. And what did we learn from television? “Scuba divers slow down their heartbeat, when they dive with sharks.” Strange I did not mention this to the editorial staff of PRO7 / SAT1 / N24. I always thought only the shark scientist Dr. Erich Ritter knows how to do this *smirk*. Anyway, at least a few thousands have seen, that you can dive “cageless” with a friendly looking tiger shark and return without a scratch. Unfortunately the audio comment is not very shark-supportive. I would have liked to hear “Did you know that several million sharks get killed every year just because of their fins?” instead of "Attacking sharks with a spear gun is exactly the right thing to do for self-defence". A shorter version has been aired in the 8 o’clock news on PRO7, KABEL1 etc. which I missed. Has anybody taped this by coincidence? Tomorrow I will put a small sample of the video online. Unfortunately my PC has not recorded the audio. But that is probably not a big loss.

If you want to get a better impression about Tiger Sharks I recommend to read our Bahamas Expediton Report 2004 by Lars, or the story How Tiger Sharks utilize Nikon cameras. There you can see much better pictures of the animals and you will hopefully conclude that slowing down your heartbeat is not a necessity for shark diving. To be honest: do you know any underwater photographer who is not overwhelmed by joyful heartthrob when he has a shark in front of his camera?

Small sidenote : The date for DIGIDEEP’s Shark-Expedition 2006 is fixed. If you want to join from 30th July till 5th August 2006, to film or photograph sharks and dolphins in the Bahamian waters, please send me a private message via our forum.

Oh look, they call me "Sharkdiver Andi Voeltz"