Palma Sharks by Catherine Cooper
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What do you think it takes to dive with sharks, other than nerves of steel? Years of training, perhaps? A cage? No need for any of that. In Mallorca, Palma Aquarium allows PADI (or equivalent) qualified visitors to dive in its enormous tank, which is home to, amongst other creatures, 20 sharks.
Palma Aquarium is actually a network of 55 different tanks housing over 8,000 examples of about 700 species. The Big Blue aquarium, at 33m deep and 25m wide, is the deepest in Europe (and second largest) and holds 3.5 million litres of salt water. As well as six sand tiger sharks, two guitar sharks, two grey sharks and 10 black-tip sharks it also houses rays and a wealth of other species.
Shark-diving at the aquarium began last year when holidaymakers started requesting it. The activity was already offered at some other aquaria worldwide owned by the same parent company, Coral World International, so Palma Aquarium decided to give it a go.
“It has been incredibly popular,” says Leticia Lope, marketing and communication director at the aquarium. “It adds a really special dimension to a holiday—many people don’t know we offer it until they get to the island, so they come just having planned an ordinary holiday and they go home having experienced something really extraordinary.”
The dives happen on three days per week and usually last between 20 to 30 minutes. Divers must hold a PADI Open Water diving qualification or equivalent. The session starts with a briefing from the qualified dive instructor, who stays in the tank with divers and acts as a guide, and a video demo of the dive is shown. Novices are warned to keep their arms by their sides and not to make any sudden movements, though the dive master reassures groups that the sharks will not cause them any harm.
Then you are taken to see the enormous tank – both so you can see what you are going to be doing but also so your dive master can point out some of the species to look out for – the various types of shark, rays, eels, the seemingly hundreds of different fish. If you are feeling nervous you can run through the various dive signals in a small swimming pool connected (but separate) to the tank before you launch yourself into the main Big Blue aquarium or if you are feeling confident, you can swim straight into the tank from the pool. You are never left on your own – the dive master will be with you throughout the dive.
“In the wild sharks can be very aggressive because they don’t feed for ages, get hungry and have to search for food,” says Leticia. “But our sharks are fed every day so there really is nothing to worry about. The species we have here are also not sharks which would typically attack humans. I did my PADI course specifically so that I could go in the tank with the sharks and it was amazing. I found it an incredibly calm experience and when I came out all I could say was “Wow!”
Francis John Cox Thorne, another recent visitor agrees. He said: “I’ve done a lot of diving but had always wanted to dive with sharks. This sounded like a convenient – and safer – way to do it. Diving in the tank was incredible – the sharks came pretty close – very close in fact – which was scary at first but after a while I relaxed and let myself enjoy it. There was one in particular which appeared to be having a good look though…..”
The dive is quite a strange experience - not just being in a tank with sharks - but also being in a tank with members of the public looking in through the glass at you swimming about with these creatures. But in spite of the faces behind the glass and even the occasional flashbulb going off, the sand on the base of the aquarium and the large rocks and all the fish swimming around make it an authentic experience as it is possible to be, with moray eels zipping through your legs and rays brushing against you. The first few minutes with the sharks quite so close are nerve-wracking but once you get through that, you will probably find you quickly relax into it. “Everyone has a different experience,” adds Leticia, "but so far no one has decided they need to get out.”
The scariest-looking sharks are the sand tiger sharks, which have mouths so full of three-pronged teeth they can’t actually close them which gives then a constantly snarling, predatory look. The largest in the tank is over two metres long, but reassuringly their jaws are apparently not suited to large prey such as humans. They tend to glide around slowly (and slightly menacingly) staring at the divers with their unblinking eyes but generally not coming too close. The grey sharks seem less threatening than the sand tiger sharks – almost like a child’s bath toy version of a shark and are the most shy and tend to keep away, while the guitar sharks are strange-looking beasts with flattened bodies – actually shaped a bit like a guitar - and the black tip sharks are easily identifiable from the black tip on the top of their fins. The sharks don’t have names but the divers can apparently tell them all apart. By the end of your dive, you may even be able to do the same.
For children, the aquarium offers shark sleepovers when kids aged six and up can spend an evening enjoying a tour of the aquarium, playing games and learning about sharks before settling down to sleep in the acrylic tunnels, with sharks swimming both above and beneath them. Whatever your age and bravery level, you can get up close and personal with sharks without needing to clamber into a cage.