White APS Mantaray Fins - will sharks want to taste me?

I love my white APS Mantarays and really enjoy being able to use them as a white reference at depth. However, I'm worried about taking them on a Bahamas trip - which will include not only random sharks on every dive but a dedicated shark dive as well - because I'm told that the high contrast will be too, um, interesting to the toothy fellas.

I posted this on Scubaboard a while back and was told that, yes, colors like yellow and white will attract sharks and should be avoided. I wanted to know what Wetpixel users, who are even more likely to have white fins, think of this.

bk

I love my white APS Mantarays and really enjoy being able to use them as a white reference at depth. However, I'm worried about taking them on a Bahamas trip - which will include not only random sharks on every dive but a dedicated shark dive as well - because I'm told that the high contrast will be too, um, interesting to the toothy fellas.

 

I posted this on Scubaboard a while back and was told that, yes, colors like yellow and white will attract sharks and should be avoided. I wanted to know what Wetpixel users, who are even more likely to have white fins, think of this.

 

bk

You could try sending an email to Jim Abernethy and see what he recommends. Based on my limited experience of one trip in the Bahamas I wouldn't do it. Black fins for me.

Steve

Jim will not allow you to wear white fins in the water from his boat.

To be fair you will soon realize what a bad idea it would be to wear them - they will just look like a piece of fish and be investigated and probably chewed.

So if you are off on a shark trip then borrow some fins - they do not need to be great fins as there is not a heck of a lot of swimming.

Paul C

It's actually going to be Blackbeard's. Unlike Abernathy or Stuart Cove's, they apparently do not prohibit white gear. That said, I guess it sounds like a good precaution to avoid white/yellow regardless. At least on the feeding dive where the sharks are amped up on chum -- maybe not so much of a deal on the "random shark may cruise by" dives. Does that sound about right?

While there is bait in the water I have never seen any shark "amped up" on one of Jims dives (and I have done three trips with Jim in total).

All in all it is some of the most under control diving that I have ever experienced - I felt a lot more out of control and at risk during some of the commercial scallop diving that I have taken part in, and scallops don't bite (well not often).

Paul C

It might be because of the Tiger Sharks on Abernathy's trips since they are a different cup of tea, but I don't know of anyone else who bans white fins.

My wife has been diving white fins for 14 years and mine are yellow. We've been in Bahamas around sharks and just got back from Galapagos where the shark count was freakishly high for Hammers, Galapagos and Silkys. Not one has ever shown the slightest interest in our fins.

Maybe it's different on the "shark chum" dives, I don't know, I've never done one of those.

JP