National Geographic, Three Freedivers, a World Record and White Sharks

Photo credit: Ryan McInnis

About three weeks ago I was in Amsterdam and able to connect with some old friends.  One of those being Claudio, a good friend and freediver from Brazil who now lives in Boston.  During the summer he ventures the cold waters of Rhode Island to dive and spear - I tried it once and after 10 mins I had enough.  Of course during our meet we spoke about freediving and he mentioned that he was actively participating on the spearo discussion board: http://www.spearboard.com/.


I usually tend to stay away from these boards - they are too charged with guys looking for the next big kill.  However, the story he forwarded intrigued me.


Three freedivers were on a trip together with National Geographic filming a documentary about white shark cognition.  During the three weeks, apparently they were able to have several interaction with them and even spear tuna (of which one may even be a world record) in their presence at depths of 100ft.  The sharks were described as curious yet cautions and "It seemed like the smaller sharks with scars all over them were the ones who always wanted a taste, and were more sketchy to be in the water with, whereas the bigger ones were more cautious and mellow."

Photo credit: Ryan McInnis

From reading the board it also came to my attention that one of the freedivers and cameramen was Ryan McInnis, who we all remember from the Tiger Shark killing debacle.  Hope he is doing better things these days.