On Marco's command we roll backwards out of the zodiac and into the water. As we begin free-falling into the depths I look down, my eyes straining for some kind of visual reference with which to judge the clarity and depth of the water. I see the rough outline of the edge of the reef plateau some 80 feet below, and beyond that, nothing but inky darkness. As we sink further the water suddenly drops, only by a couple of degrees, but enough to be noticeable nevertheless. I shiver involuntarily; partly from the cold, though mostly from excitement. Cold water means one thing in these parts: sharks.
When we reach the plateau, we briefly halt our descent to swim horizontally for a short distance. As we reach the edge of the shelf, the sheer depth of the water beyond becomes apparent. I don't ever recall seeing water this dark before, and for a second I'm gripped by fear. I swim over the edge anyway.
As I drop deeper and deeper into the blackness my fears are eased by the reassuring buzz of nitrogen bubbling through my veins. Nitrogen Narcosis, "Rapture of the Deep", is an occupational hazard of diving beyond about 70 or 80 feet, at which point the usually inert gas (which makes up some 70% of the air we breathe) suddenly becomes powerfully intoxicating. The effect is hard to describe, though personally I'd compare it to a cross between alcohol and morphine; the relaxation and confidence of the drink twinned with the euphoria of the opiate, all the while underpinned with a barely contained terror. For despite the narcotic thrill from the tank on my back, diving this deep is a potentially hazardous endeavour, especially with the dulling of reaction times that goes with getting "narced". I try to breathe slowly to restrain my pounding heart and conserve the precious supply of air I carry.
I'm startled from my reverie by the sudden bleeping of an alarm; it takes me a moment to realise that it's the computer on my own wrist which is making the racket. I stare at the screen, for a moment not comprehending what is happening. The number "130" flashes repeatedly, alerting me to the fact that I have now reached the internationally- accepted depth limit for recreational diving. I push a button to silence the infernal beeping and kick myself downwards.
Ten feet below me Marco, the divemaster, points into the distance. Slowly an unmistakable shape emerges from the gloom. A shark. As it swims lazily towards us, its colouration becomes apparent, glistening in what little light penetrates these murky depths, the dark upperside contrasts beautifully with the pure white underbelly. It approaches to within fifteen feet, then turns to flank us, all the time keeping one eye focussed on these strange intruders into its world. As it moves past, great tail slowly flicking from side to side, I try to make a mental measurement of size: somewhere in the region of 7 or 8 feet. At this point I realise with a start that the shark's head is grotesquely deformed. This is no reef shark, it is a scalloped hammerhead. My joy is unbridled. After some 300 dives across the globe, in locations as diverse as Australia, The Bahamas, Egypt, Tahiti and Thailand, I have finally seen this most beautiful and mysterious of sharks. And what's more, two more of the majestic fish appear in the gloom, circling in evident curiosity. "Just like buses", I think to myself, "I wait ages for one, and then three come at once."
Before I can fully savour the nitrogen-enhanced euphoria of the hammerheads, however, I am once again startled by the alarm bells ringing on my wrist. The computer tells me I am now at 152 feet, and have incurred seven minutes of decompression time. In short, this means I cannot return to the surface, even in the event of an emergency, for at least seven minutes, or I will almost certainly suffer decompression sickness: "The Bends". This is not a scenario I wish to consider: the bends is an excruciatingly painful condition, often leading to paralysis or death, particularly in the absence of immediate remedial treatment in a recompression chamber. There is no functioning chamber in Sudan. I swiftly obey the computer's instruction and start to move to shallower depths. I look down and realise with horror that I can no longer see Marco, some fifty feet below; only the trail of bubbles from his regulator betrays his position.
As I drift back to shallower water, and head towards the plateau, I spot two more hammerheads below. One is a juvenile, no larger than two feet, and is dwarfed by what I presume to be its mother, swimming protectively alongside. The two swim directly beneath me, and I marvel at the perfectly formed miniature version of this beautiful animal. While I explore the shallower reaches of the reef wall as part of my decompression time, I keep one eye to the blue in search of more sharks. While there are no more hammerheads, the water being too warm at these depths, a few grey reef sharks cruise casually past, sometimes coming closer for an inquisitive look at the divers. While not as exciting as their bizarrely-headed cousins - I have seen reef sharks countless tiems before - there is always something special about every encounter with a shark. Their power, beauty, and mystery never fails to inspire awe among divers, and though few would admit to feeling actual fear, there is always a certain increase in heartrate associated with the sight of that unmistakable shape in the water.
Sharks are the main attraction of diving in Sudan; the reefs may be pristine and relatively unexplored, and this may be the site of Hans Hass and Jacques Cousteau's pioneering forays into the underwater realm back in the 1950s and 60s, but ask any diver why they are in Sudan, and the answer is invariably the same. One site in Sudanese waters even bears the name Um Gerosh: "Mother of Sharks". This being the wrong seson, however, I did not visit that particular location; in many ways though it is an apt description of Sudanese diving as whole, this being one of the increasingly few areas of the world where it is still possible to view sharks in relative abundance. For despite the widespread perception of sharks, due in no small measure to Steven Spielberg's Jaws, sharks have much more to fear from us than we do from them.
Nobody actually knows how many sharks are killed globally each year, though estimates range from 25 to 100 million. What is not in doubt is that shark populations are declining at breathtaking speed. The Shark Trust, a British charity which campaigns for shark conservation around the world, estimates that the populations of most of the 300+ species of shark have declined by a staggering 70% in the last 20 years. Some species have been reduced to 2% of their original size; many individual populations have been decimated even further. The culprit is not hard to identify: shark fishing is largely unregulated, particularly in Asian waters. The Chinese, ever-rapacious in their wanton destruction of the planet's resources, have a seemingly insatiable appetite for shark fin soup, and a simarily mystifying obsession with the non-existent medicinal and aphrodisiac properties of sharks. A single whale shark fin can fetch $20,000 on the Chinese market; there are no shortage of fishermen willing to hunt such valuable fish. Perhaps most disgustingly, the Chinese do not eat the rest of the shark, only its fins, and thus millions of sharks are subjected to the gruesome process of "finning": hauled aboard a floating fish processing plant on longlines, the sharks, still very much alive, have their fins sawn off with a hot metal blade before being thrown back into the water to drown.
Yet the plight of sharks is widely ignored, as environmentalists strive to protect more photogenic, ie "cuddly", species, or jump on the bandwagon of Al Gore's crusade against global warming. Within a few years there will be no sharks left, and few will mourn their passing. They will be just one more sad casualty of mankind's relentless destruction of the planet. It's entirely possible I will never be lucky enough to see hammerheads again. In which case, at least I will always have the memory of the sharks of Sanganeb; I have absolutely no doubt that the next generation of divers will not be so fortunate.
When we reach the plateau, we briefly halt our descent to swim horizontally for a short distance. As we reach the edge of the shelf, the sheer depth of the water beyond becomes apparent. I don't ever recall seeing water this dark before, and for a second I'm gripped by fear. I swim over the edge anyway.
As I drop deeper and deeper into the blackness my fears are eased by the reassuring buzz of nitrogen bubbling through my veins. Nitrogen Narcosis, "Rapture of the Deep", is an occupational hazard of diving beyond about 70 or 80 feet, at which point the usually inert gas (which makes up some 70% of the air we breathe) suddenly becomes powerfully intoxicating. The effect is hard to describe, though personally I'd compare it to a cross between alcohol and morphine; the relaxation and confidence of the drink twinned with the euphoria of the opiate, all the while underpinned with a barely contained terror. For despite the narcotic thrill from the tank on my back, diving this deep is a potentially hazardous endeavour, especially with the dulling of reaction times that goes with getting "narced". I try to breathe slowly to restrain my pounding heart and conserve the precious supply of air I carry.
I'm startled from my reverie by the sudden bleeping of an alarm; it takes me a moment to realise that it's the computer on my own wrist which is making the racket. I stare at the screen, for a moment not comprehending what is happening. The number "130" flashes repeatedly, alerting me to the fact that I have now reached the internationally- accepted depth limit for recreational diving. I push a button to silence the infernal beeping and kick myself downwards.
Ten feet below me Marco, the divemaster, points into the distance. Slowly an unmistakable shape emerges from the gloom. A shark. As it swims lazily towards us, its colouration becomes apparent, glistening in what little light penetrates these murky depths, the dark upperside contrasts beautifully with the pure white underbelly. It approaches to within fifteen feet, then turns to flank us, all the time keeping one eye focussed on these strange intruders into its world. As it moves past, great tail slowly flicking from side to side, I try to make a mental measurement of size: somewhere in the region of 7 or 8 feet. At this point I realise with a start that the shark's head is grotesquely deformed. This is no reef shark, it is a scalloped hammerhead. My joy is unbridled. After some 300 dives across the globe, in locations as diverse as Australia, The Bahamas, Egypt, Tahiti and Thailand, I have finally seen this most beautiful and mysterious of sharks. And what's more, two more of the majestic fish appear in the gloom, circling in evident curiosity. "Just like buses", I think to myself, "I wait ages for one, and then three come at once."
Before I can fully savour the nitrogen-enhanced euphoria of the hammerheads, however, I am once again startled by the alarm bells ringing on my wrist. The computer tells me I am now at 152 feet, and have incurred seven minutes of decompression time. In short, this means I cannot return to the surface, even in the event of an emergency, for at least seven minutes, or I will almost certainly suffer decompression sickness: "The Bends". This is not a scenario I wish to consider: the bends is an excruciatingly painful condition, often leading to paralysis or death, particularly in the absence of immediate remedial treatment in a recompression chamber. There is no functioning chamber in Sudan. I swiftly obey the computer's instruction and start to move to shallower depths. I look down and realise with horror that I can no longer see Marco, some fifty feet below; only the trail of bubbles from his regulator betrays his position.
As I drift back to shallower water, and head towards the plateau, I spot two more hammerheads below. One is a juvenile, no larger than two feet, and is dwarfed by what I presume to be its mother, swimming protectively alongside. The two swim directly beneath me, and I marvel at the perfectly formed miniature version of this beautiful animal. While I explore the shallower reaches of the reef wall as part of my decompression time, I keep one eye to the blue in search of more sharks. While there are no more hammerheads, the water being too warm at these depths, a few grey reef sharks cruise casually past, sometimes coming closer for an inquisitive look at the divers. While not as exciting as their bizarrely-headed cousins - I have seen reef sharks countless tiems before - there is always something special about every encounter with a shark. Their power, beauty, and mystery never fails to inspire awe among divers, and though few would admit to feeling actual fear, there is always a certain increase in heartrate associated with the sight of that unmistakable shape in the water.
Sharks are the main attraction of diving in Sudan; the reefs may be pristine and relatively unexplored, and this may be the site of Hans Hass and Jacques Cousteau's pioneering forays into the underwater realm back in the 1950s and 60s, but ask any diver why they are in Sudan, and the answer is invariably the same. One site in Sudanese waters even bears the name Um Gerosh: "Mother of Sharks". This being the wrong seson, however, I did not visit that particular location; in many ways though it is an apt description of Sudanese diving as whole, this being one of the increasingly few areas of the world where it is still possible to view sharks in relative abundance. For despite the widespread perception of sharks, due in no small measure to Steven Spielberg's Jaws, sharks have much more to fear from us than we do from them.
Nobody actually knows how many sharks are killed globally each year, though estimates range from 25 to 100 million. What is not in doubt is that shark populations are declining at breathtaking speed. The Shark Trust, a British charity which campaigns for shark conservation around the world, estimates that the populations of most of the 300+ species of shark have declined by a staggering 70% in the last 20 years. Some species have been reduced to 2% of their original size; many individual populations have been decimated even further. The culprit is not hard to identify: shark fishing is largely unregulated, particularly in Asian waters. The Chinese, ever-rapacious in their wanton destruction of the planet's resources, have a seemingly insatiable appetite for shark fin soup, and a simarily mystifying obsession with the non-existent medicinal and aphrodisiac properties of sharks. A single whale shark fin can fetch $20,000 on the Chinese market; there are no shortage of fishermen willing to hunt such valuable fish. Perhaps most disgustingly, the Chinese do not eat the rest of the shark, only its fins, and thus millions of sharks are subjected to the gruesome process of "finning": hauled aboard a floating fish processing plant on longlines, the sharks, still very much alive, have their fins sawn off with a hot metal blade before being thrown back into the water to drown.
Yet the plight of sharks is widely ignored, as environmentalists strive to protect more photogenic, ie "cuddly", species, or jump on the bandwagon of Al Gore's crusade against global warming. Within a few years there will be no sharks left, and few will mourn their passing. They will be just one more sad casualty of mankind's relentless destruction of the planet. It's entirely possible I will never be lucky enough to see hammerheads again. In which case, at least I will always have the memory of the sharks of Sanganeb; I have absolutely no doubt that the next generation of divers will not be so fortunate.
