“For those divers who think they have been everywhere and done everything, especially those hardcore shark divers, this is one dive that must be included to make the list complete….Looking like living dinosaurs these fifteen-foot monsters crash into the shark cage and tear into the bait only a few feet from your camera.  Take a really wide angle lens.”
-Howard Hall March 2007

 
Howard Hall’s above quote, written for the Six Gill Shark Adventure brochure sums up the experience perfectly.  Most of you reading this know that I’ve had the good fortune to lead underwater photo expeditions to many of the world’s best dive locations and have also been face to face with a lot of very large sea creatures but, in all my 30 years of diving, few of those encounters has had the thrill factor of a night dive with a 14 foot six gill shark in Elliot Bay.  It’s hard to imagine such a great adventure exists within a few miles of my home and just minutes from downtown Seattle!

Six gill sharks are the third largest predatory shark in the world growing up to 18 feet long.  Their usual range is 1500-6000 feet deep and are only occasionally spotted in depths shallow enough for scuba divers.  A 200 million year old species, this shark resembles fossils sharks that date back to the Triassic period.

I have had the privilege to dive with these sharks before, in British Columbia, but the encounters were brief, lasting only 2-5 minutes before the 8-10 foot long sharks would swim off into the darkness.  Last February, when I got a call from my long time friend, Howard Hall, with an invitation for me to join him, along with Marty Snyderman, for another opportunity to dive with the six gills, this time right in my own back yard, I jumped on the chance.   Unlike my previous dives to see six gills, where we would drop to depths of about 100 feet, hanging out as long as possible hoping for an encounter, these sharks were coming in groups of up to 4 at a time, swimming right up to the cage for the entire dive at depths of only 50 feet.  The highlight was a 14 foot shark that did a taste test on the cage bars right in front of my dive mask.  The sharks I saw in Puget Sound averaged 12-14 foot and were considerably larger than any I encountered in British Columbia.

To be sure, this is highly specialized diving and subject matter.  All the diving is done at night, in cold water with unpredictable visibility.  The reward for all this is very up close encounters with these rarely seen deep water sharks.  The trip is limited to 6 divers with accommodations on a comfortable boat with single occupancy.  Each dive will be limited to just two divers at a time plus a Team Hydrus safety diver.  The cage we will be using is simple to swim into from the top and there is plenty of room for the two divers to work side-by-side.  The safety diver usually stays on top of the cage to keep an eye on everything,  The bolder diver can open up a door for a totally unobstructed view of the sharks. There is a well thought out and designed lighting system that lights up a wide area around the cage for easy viewing of the sharks at night.

For more information on the trips, including booking procedures and pricing, please call me direct at 206-364-5080 or send an email to chris@chrishuss.com with “six gills” as the subject line.

Below are links to more information on the trip and six gill sharks.

Marty Snyderman’s six gill story in Dive Training magazine:

http://www.dtmag.com/Issues/2007-07-editorials.htm  (the story starts about 1/2 way down the page, titled:  Sixgills in Seattle).