Shark Bytes: Tales of Diving with the Bizarre and the Beautiful

The popular image of sharks is of a dorsal fin cleaving the surface as it rushes to its next kill, but this is a limited caricature. There are over 500 species to choose from, most of whom are far more frightened of humans than vice versa. In this beautiful book, diving veteran John Bantin recounts many tales of his diving with several species of sharks and other marine animals over the last 4 decades. Accompanied by his own stunning photography, the captivating, spectacular and sometimes shocking encounters show the reader what it is like to get up close and personal to these bizarre and beautiful creatures. The sharks covered range from the great whale sharks to the small blacktip reef shark, in locations extending to all corners of the globe.

Table of Contents

Introduction

1: The Great Hammerhead

2: Early Experiences in the Bahamas

3: Whitetip Reef Sharks

4: The French Connection

5: Grey Reef Sharks of the Indo-Pacific

6: Beveridge Reef

7: Hammerhead Madness

8: Dirty Rock, Cocos Island

9: Nurses and Leopards

10: The Oceanic Whitetip

11: Photographing Oceanic Whitetips

12: Bottlenose Dolphin

13: Silky Sharks and Dolphins

14: Whale Sharks

15: Tagging Whale Sharks

16: Whale Sharks and the Thruster

17: Safari or Circus?

18: Bull Sharks

19: Tiger, Tiger

20: The Tasselled Wobbegong

21: Shark Diving in the Golden Triangle

22: The Sha’ab Rumi Shark Club

23: Panic at Gordon Rocks

24: Australian Rules

25: A Dive on the Wild Side

26: Maldives After Dark

27: Manta Mania

28: Dugongs: Mermaids of Years Gone By

29: British Sharks

30: What Eats Sharks?

31: Shark Feeding: Right or Wrong?

32: Is the Only Good Shark a Dead Shark?

Tailpiece: Sharks Keep Messing With My Wallet