Trip report: diving with tiger sharks in the Bahamas
Margriet works at EWDR as a marketing and content specialist. She is also an avid diver and diving instructor. In this travelogue, she takes you aboard the liveaboard Bahamas Aggressor II, on a fun group trip with other Dutch divers. She looks back on a week of diving with sharks in the Bahamas.
The journey from Amsterdam to Freeport
My trip to the Bahamas is a group trip with the entire boat rented. The group is led by Lex, the owner of 4Divers, a dive store and association in Veenendaal. Lex brings together a group of experienced divers every year for a special diving trip. So we have a nice group of Dutch people on board, some of whom already know each other and some of whom don’t yet. I don’t know most of the people yet, so I’m curious to hear all the (diving) stories on board. There are quite a few seasoned divers among them, with lots of experience under water and many stamps in their passports. That always makes for great stories!
Most participants travel to the Bahamas in different ways, and some even get there a few days (or weeks) in advance. My trip is from Amsterdam to London and then on to Miami. There I will stay one night in a hotel so that I can fly on to Freeport the next day rested.
In Miami, things are well organized: I dropped off my checked luggage in Amsterdam and I don’t pick it up again until the next day in Freeport. There is also an airport shuttle to the hotel, so I don’t have to arrange or still pay for a cab. I stay there with another travel companion, and the next morning at the gate another travel companion from our group joins us. That way we end up traveling the last leg, which is nice.
Arriving in the Bahamas & checking in on the boat
Our flight lands early at Freeport. It ends up being only about a 20-minute flight from Miami. We arrive at a small airport and meet two more group members in line at customs. Our luggage is already ready: literally, because there is no luggage belt. The suitcases are simply put in a space where you can grab them yourself and take them out.
We are now a group of five and have arranged for a van to take us to the port. We are early, but can already leave the luggage at the boat, which immediately saves some dragging. There is a small restaurant nearby, but we choose Pier One. There we sit directly on the water and can have lunch with a view of the sea. We even see the first sharks, although it is good to know that they are fed here. As a result, the animals stay near the restaurant and you can even buy fish to feed them. That explains why they keep swimming so close.
Around 4 p.m. we are welcomed on board and immediately start getting our diving equipment ready. Then we are taken to our cabins. I have a cabin at the very front of the boat, in the tip. It is the smallest cabin on board, but because of this it is also very cozy. Most cabins have windows, but mine does not. No problem for me-it’s wonderfully dark there at night, anyway.
We are then given a comprehensive boat briefing of about an hour. The plan is to set sail around 6 p.m. toward Tiger Beach, the area where the tiger sharks are located. It’s about a six-hour sail, which would get us there around midnight. Unfortunately, there is too much wind and we cannot leave. Even with help from the other Aggressor boat, it doesn’t work; we really need a tug. So it is postponed to the next morning.
Fortunately, a fantastic dinner is already waiting for us that evening. Chef Andres from Mexico has prepared a three-course menu. This is immediately one of the advantages of the Aggressor Fleet: an à la carte style three-course menu is served every night with table service, rather than the buffet you see on many other liveaboards.
Departure to Tiger Beach & first dives
The next morning, over breakfast, we leave for Tiger Beach, which is about a 6-hour boat ride away. Tiger Beach is on the open sea, about 32 kilometers off the coast of West End on Grand Bahama. It is even closer to Florida than to the Bahamas itself; on clear days you can see the Miami skyline. Because we are on the open sea, there is little shelter and wind and currents can be fairly strong here at times. The reason for the name of the dive site and surroundings is because the bottom is a large sandy plain and there are tiger sharks here for the breeding season. You only see females and often pregnant sharks here.
We have extensive time in the morning for breakfast, a general dive briefing on diving with sharks and then lunch. Right after lunch it’s time to get into the water! It is a typical check dive, where weights are passed around and everyone has to get used to how diving on this boat goes. A nice first dive it was though! While descending I already saw the first shark and I even saw a dolphin underwater. I heard it first, which made me look up. Before I knew it, the dolphin had also swam away. We stay in the water for an hour and after a surface interval we make a second dive at a dive site called Mini Wall. Here too there is plenty to see: two rays swimming together under us, lots of life around the wall, barracudas and also two reef sharks again. Between these two dives, the chef was already waiting for us with a snack for between dives. And after the second dive, we can sit right down for dinner.
After dinner we get ready for the night dive. It was really worth it in the end: three species of turtles, including one that was really huge and one that kept swimming quietly below us and left us alone after a few laps. We also saw lobsters, stingrays and squid. After a hot shower and some time in the parlor, it’s bedtime.
We have a total of six diving days, alternating between “shark dives” and “normal dives. In this area you can actually always encounter sharks, but they are two totally different types of dives. During the shark dives, a triangle of fish hangs from the front of the boat. The sharks come for that, so there is much more activity. We then sit in a semicircle on our knees in the sand and stay there for about an hour. On the “normal” dives, we just swim as you would on any dive. During the week we alternate this: sometimes shark dives in the morning and reef dives in the afternoon, and sometimes the other way around.
The water is 24°C, so after an hour of sitting still on the bottom it can get quite cold. You’ll notice that a lot less when you’re actively swimming.
Unfortunately, the first few days we have less luck with the tiger sharks. We did see many other sharks. Sometimes we jump into the water and about fifteen of them swim around the boat, an impressive sight. They are not at all shy: reef sharks swim calmly over you and it happened several times that a lemon shark lay down on the bottom between us, as if he were part of the group. You can then also clearly see how small fish clean their mouths.
After three days, it’s finally here: our first tiger shark. And what a difference from the reef sharks. The size alone makes an impression. The first one we see is still relatively small, but it doesn’t stop at one. At its peak, three different tiger sharks swim around us, one of which is at least five meters long. The largest was Emma, a tiger shark that has been swimming around here for about twenty years. She can be identified by her slightly battered dorsal fin. It’s details like that that make it extra special, you don’t just look at sharks, you actually start to recognize them.
The following days we alternate between shark dives and reef dives. Unfortunately, we also have a day with high winds and strong currents, so we end up making only one dive. Too bad, but it’s part of the game. Fortunately, it is anything but boring on board. The group is fun, the sun deck is a nice place to relax (including a jacuzzi) and the food is good every day. Thus, this day also flies by.
We also make another dive on the Sugar Wreck, where we did a night dive earlier. It is a shallow dive of about 6 meters, but there is a lot of life. Everywhere you look you see fish-a nice change after the shark dives.
Then, unfortunately, the time comes to sail back to port. On the last day we make one more reef dive, after which we are picked up by a big boat that takes us back. A nice ending to the dives.
On Saturday, it’s time to really say goodbye and everyone goes their separate ways. I stay another night in a hotel, so have another day to explore Freeport. Several others in the group also stay another night and are in the same hotel. So we are going out for another day in part. One person has a rental car, so we drive around a bit and go to the Botanical Garden. You really do need a car here if you want to see some of the island. The sights are quite far apart and a cab often costs 30 USD each way. A rental car costs less.
What is striking is how quiet it is everywhere. There is another side to that: parts of Freeport still bear the marks of the hurricane that passed over here in 2019. As a result, it feels empty and quiet in some places, something you don’t immediately expect in a destination like the Bahamas. There are also only a few hotels open, some not having reopened after the hurricane. In any case, the hotel we are in is fantastically beautiful. There is a view of the water from the rooms and you have the sunrise here. There are two swimming pools, a good restaurant and several bars.
On Sunday, the return trip really begins. The airport at Freeport is perhaps the smallest I’ve ever been to: only 4 gates, and to get to the last gate you have to leave the airport through a door, walk a little way outside, and only then do you arrive at the gate. It feels a little illegal, like going through an emergency exit, but it’s just part of it.
Traveling to the Bahamas?
Want to dive with tiger sharks in The Bahamas? We offer year-round trips to The Bahamas, but the tiger shark season runs from October through June,. During the summer months, the sea is warmer and quieter, but the chances of seeing tiger sharks are generally a little lower. You can do some fantastic diving in another part of the Bahamas then, though.
Water temperatures are usually around 24-27°C and air temperatures range between 25-30°C. Keep in mind that diving at Tiger Beach takes place on the open sea, so wind and currents can affect conditions. This makes each trip slightly different, and that is also part of the experience.
