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Shark Wallpaper
Text & Photographs by Jeremy Cuff
As I scrambled to get my camera from the boatman after a backwards roll into the water, Ray blurted excitedly “Jeremy, quick get the camera, sharks!”
It was our first dive at Roca Partida, a remote seamount that forms part of Mexico’s Socorro Islands in the Eastern Pacific (also known as the tongue twisting Revillagigedo Islands and sometimes referred to as “ Mexico’s Galapagos”). It’s the kind of place where anything can turn up.
This dive was a real stroke of luck; we’d been dropped into the path of huge school of Silky Sharks, possibly numbering a thousand individuals. It was an incredible sight and is often referred to in the diving community as “shark wallpaper”. “You don’t see that everyday”, remarked one diver with understatement.
As alluded to, it’s an increasingly rare spectacle in today’s impoverished seas, with many species of sharks now scarce, threatened or even critically endangered thanks to massive overfishing on a global scale.
The crew of the dive liveaboard Solmar V, including Ray (a veteran of 9 years experience diving these remote volcanic isles) and marine biologist Eric couldn’t contain their enthusiasm for what we had witnessed. It was the most sharks that they’d ever seen in a single dive.
Our trip was considered to be one of the best of the season, where we were offered a glimpse into a bygone era, of seas teeming with life in all its brutal beauty.
June 2009
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