Swansboro, North Carolina ~ August 2023

                Departure from Newark Airport to Charlotte Airport was scheduled to be 9:59 on this hot August morning.  All passengers were boarded, myself and fellow shark-enthusiast, Casey, included.  What was supposed to be a few minutes delay to fix a computer/navigational issue on the aircraft gradually turned into an hour.  Usually my airport anxiety disappears as soon as I get through security with an hour or so to spare but this situation escalated it again as we had a short one-hour layover in between flights.  This was not just a problem for us but nearly half of the passengers on board who all had connecting flights to about thirty other different destinations.  So we weren’t going to get any sympathy from them or any special treatment from the airline crew.

               Following a fairly smooth flight, we were ready to make a run for it.  Standing in the aisle of Row 19, I waited anxiously for those ahead to retrieve their luggage from the overhead compartments and get out of the way.  During this wait, my phone alerted me that my connecting flight was beginning to board.  And the next problem?  The gate we needed to get to was an 18-minute walk from our current location and the Charlotte Airport apparently has no tram system!  Casey and I ran like hell, taking every single moving walkway when available, screaming as politely as possible at anybody on it to move aside as we ran across them as if they were treadmills.  As much as I work out, this mad dash across the Charlotte Airport had me sweating profusely and absolutely exhausted me more than any Peloton workout.  Getting to North Carolina two years ago was problematic too, so I was beyond convinced that this time would be no different.  I was certain that we were definitely going to miss this connecting flight.  But the stars were aligned properly that day because as luck would have it, we actually made it!

 

               All the airport drama aside, our reluctant return to North Carolina was two years in the making.  Back in 2021, Casey, Cecile, and I had ventured to the Tar Heel State with a primary objective of scuba diving with sand tiger sharks and a secondary objective of completing the dives for our wreck certification.  We had scheduled three days of diving during that trip; two to complete the wreck certification dives and a bonus third day to meet and dive with the local sand tiger sharks.  Unfortunately, we had one dive day cancelled.  Since our instructor was dead set on having us complete the requirements for the certification, this meant no sand tiger sharks.  We were heartbroken.  And while we did successfully become certified wreck divers, we left North Carolina disappointed with an overwhelming feeling of defeat.  And even though this state had left us with a salty taste in our mouths, we vowed to return here just once to meet those sand tiger sharks.

               And then along came Captain Cindy and her amazing crew from Instigator Fishing and Diving, operating out of Swansboro, also known as the friendly city by the sea.  I knew right from the start, when conversing with Cindy months prior via email and phone, that this dive operator was going to deliver.  Her detailed explanations of everything, whether it was regarding safety or weather conditions, put my mind at ease.  She even let me in on the secret to diving North Carolina … and that is to book five days of diving and hope/expect to get two.  This is because the off-sea conditions can change at the blink of an eye, even when it looks to be a beautiful day on land.  (This was exactly how we lost that one dive day two years ago!  At the time, we were completely baffled why diving would be cancelled when the weather was beautiful.)

               Heeding that advice, we booked four days and ended up getting two.  And they were epic!  Day one was long.  Never have I ever boarded a dive boat before sunrise but I did so willingly on this day and it was totally worth it!  With an alarm clock set for 4:30, our meeting time at the dock was 5:30.  The journey for our 3-tank offshore dives was 54 miles out to sea which took about 3 hours of travel by boat.  Sitting comfortably on cushy bean bag chairs, the time just flew by and before we knew it, we were at the Hardee’s Reef Wreck.  I reached a new depth record of 100 feet on this dive and met many new critters along the way.  This wreck was littered with round jelly fish the size of dinner plates.  Their clear, semi-opaque bodies moved gracefully through the water column, like squishy umbrellas with fringe along the edges.  As one got close to me, the back of my hand touched it and it felt harder than how I would have imagined it would feel.  Totally unexpected!  I could have watched them all day as a sort of meditative therapy.  Thousands of tiny bait fish were everywhere as well and they moved in unison at times, almost as though they were one huge entity with a single brain.  A few attractive angelfish adorned this wreck along with barracuda up above and stingrays below in the sand.

This wreck had many intact parts which provided a home for abundant sea life, making it a stunning site for our eyes to behold.  But little did we know, we were about to get the ultimate unexpected treat on this wreck.  When our guide, James, signaled to us that he saw a hammerhead shark at the end of the dive, I was in disbelief.  And then, in all her glory, this elegant Great Hammerhead peered out from one side of the wreck.  Despite having seen Great Hammerheads before, I was in total awe.  She was clearly in hunting mode as she calculably scanned the sandy bottom for stingrays with her cephalofoil head.  As she made her way slowly along one side of the wreck, she quickly picked up her pace, most likely to pin down an unsuspecting stingray.  At that same moment, I saw another frightened ray make a rapid escape behind her, scurrying away in hopes that he would remain undetected by this formidable predator.  I’m convinced that we were witnessing a natural predation of a hammerhead hunting stingrays in action.  Unfortunately, my NDL time was running low so I was unable to follow this hungry hammer and see her actively hunt rather than have a fish head handed out to her by one of Neal Watson’s feeders in Bimini.

The next wreck we graced our presence with was the Caribsea, a WWII freighter ship that was transporting manganese from Cuba to Norfolk, Virginia when it was torpedoed down in March of 1942.  We were told that there were anywhere from 50 to 200 sand tiger sharks present on this wreck, so we were already ecstatic before we even splashed.  And when we did, it didn’t take long at all before they started appearing at about a depth of 40 to 50 feet.

This was a natural aggregation, a gathering of so many sharks in an environment that had not been altered by human interference (by which I mean the utilization of bait to draw the sharks in.)  They were just there.  I had never experienced anything like this on any dive prior.  It was simply amazing.  These hunched-back, ragged-tooth creatures may look menacing with their pointy teeth and small, beaty eyes but they are as docile as they come.  Making eye contact with a shark is always a pleasing experience to me and this was no exception.  A mutual fascination and curiosity exchanged between two beings of two completely different worlds, although mine was probably much stronger than theirs.

These sand tigers swam side by side, slowly and methodically through the water column, where they moved forward like soldiers in formation but with no desire or intention to kill maliciously.  They were extremely peaceful and did not appear to be bothered by us in the least.  Their welcome was warm and inviting.  They tolerated our presence but weren’t overly enthusiastic about us either.  It was as if they were saying, “We have things to do and places to go but please make yourselves at home and stay as long as you’d like.  Just don’t leave a mess behind and don’t stir up the sand too much.”

James was trying so hard to get us to descend all the way to the wreck but we were simply enamored by these sand tiger sharks and couldn’t break free of the shiver.  We eventually did descend to the wreck which was the source of some not-so-hidden treasure.  The sand tiger sharks gifted us with thousands of pearly white teeth!  And they were right there, clear as day to be seen and claimed by anyone who was lucky enough to spot them.  Not only that but we also had the privilege of meeting a Caribsea resident octopus who had a few tentacles chomped off.  With a quick poke from James, this little guy actually swam a short distance away from his den before settling down and hiding under a ledge.  Such a beautiful, agile creature, even with his disability.  In addition to this octopus we also saw schools of spadefish, spotted eels poking their heads out of crevices, grubby-looking sea cucumbers, and a slender sea spider.  But the sand tiger sharks were the stars of the show for sure.

The next day the seas were predicted to gain intensity in the afternoon and evening but this still allowed us to do a 2-tank inshore dive day on the Hutton Wreck.  This ship was also torpedoed down in March of 1942 as it was traveling from New York to Corpus Christi.  It had many intact sections including remains of the engines, gears, boilers, an archway of some sort, and unidentifiable tangled metals.  There was lots of marine life present here as well including more sea cucumbers, a goliath grouper, concealed flounders (which we spotted!), starfish, another sea spider, more tiny baitfish, spadefish, and the resident sandbar shark they refer to as Nibbler!  Cindy and another diver were spearfishing in the water column and had caught a massive spadefish.  The scent of this recently deceased fish resultingly drew Nibbler in.  Seeing her circle around us in the water column gave me the indisputable feeling of being back at the Deep Ledge in Jupiter.  Funny how that actually made me feel mildly homesick!

All things considered, our second journey to North Carolina and our triumphant return to the Graveyard of the Atlantic turned out MUCH more successful than our first.  As a parting gift, Cindy even gave us each a Megalodon tooth to adorn our treasure-trove of sand tiger shark teeth we hand-picked from the Caribsea wreck.  (I will have to give James some credit for helping us with that too!)  We finally met our sought-out sand tiger sharks who welcomed us with open fins and treated us with respect as some odd-looking, out of place members of their shiver.  And while we swore we would never return to North Carolina ever again, this adventure made us fall in love with this beautiful place and we simply cannot wait to return.