We were on location in the Maldives on an island called Marafushi. This tiny island is surrounded with a coral reef that drops from very shallow water to an 80 foot plateau. The edge of the plateau drops steeply to 400 feet to a sand bottom .The sheer walls of this deep reef form a passageway to open ocean .The passageway leads to the reef shelf that drops down to over 3000 feet. The currents travelling along the wall supply all manner of small life with plankton and oxygen. The abundance of small life attracts a large variety of ocean predators including manta rays, giant groper, sting rays, dolphins, whale sharks, tuna and of course sharks.

The most common shark being the dangerous bull sharks with the far less dangerous reef sharks in great numbers. The reason I was here in the Maldives, was because of the large population of sharks. The concept was to tie baits to a coral head at the edge of the sheer wall and film the sharks feeding. I had done much of this type of filming before but was not prepared for what would take place.

We took the dive boat out across the reef to arrive at the drop off . On board I had approximately 80 pounds of fish carcasses all wired together. My assistant took my cameras and I swam down to the reef some 80 feet below with the large collection of fish carcasses in my hands, unfortunately as I swam down the fish brushed against my wetsuit covered leg, leaving fish blood and mucus on my suit. I felt the fish against my leg and tried to keep the bait from touching me again, but their was little I could do about the smell that was now on my impregnated on my suit. I could either abort the dive and change suits or carry on and hope for the best.

I decided to do the latter and swam on down through the blue, arriving at the reef wall I twisted the wire around a dead coral head so the sharks had to feed at the one location and not speed off with all the bait.

I wanted extreme close up footage of the shark feeding.

Now the bait was firmly attached to the coral, I took my movie cameras from my assistant and lay down flat some few feet from the bait and waited.

The water was crystal clear as I could easily see the dive boat 80 feet above and could see down the reef wall the soft coral fans some 200 feet below. Looking out into the blue I could see large predator fish like tuna and trevally patrolling with the odd bull shark in the distance. I forgot about the smell that was still on my leg and calmed my nerves for what would happen next.

The smell of the bait began to drift down the reef wall as the current increased with the outgoing tide. This current took the smell of the bait along the passage out into the open sea where the sharks were in abundance. Soon small groper and trevally began to attack the bait with fast rushes in and out to gain a mouth full. Then came a large thickly bodied bull shark on the scene. He swam around the bait and then approached me only to turn away and circle again, I noticed a brightly yellow striped pilot fish was riding the pressure wave in front of his snout.

It is funny how I would notice such a small fish and almost ignore the menacing shark, but when you have spent most of your life as a diver the little things become interesting. The sharks made another pass at me this time coming within a few feet of my camera only to speed off into the blue.

I thought at the time "he is going to get his mates" Well that is exactly what he did because within minutes sharks came in numbers too great to count began circling me and the bait, then a large trevally started the action, when it attacked the baits, his aggressive shaking caused the vibration that stimulated the sharks to feed, A feeding frenzy began as sharks of both species attacked the baits.

I was getting great action footage of the sharks grabbing the baits , shaking heads and tearing off chunks of flesh, when I felt something holding my lower leg. I looked down from my viewfinder to see a sight that sent shivers down my spine. The Maldives is known for its exceptionally large moray eels and one of these monster eels was mouthing my leg. It had smelt the fish blood and mucus on my wetsuit and had placed his open jaws around my calf muscle.

The moray would have exceeded 7 feet in length and a head that was larger than any I had ever seen. Tropical eels have a mouth filled with long needle sharp teeth and very powerfully muscled jaws, an eel this size could tear a shocking wound in my leg. The eel was not biting however, but just mouthing my leg gently as if testing to see what it was. My first thoughts were to get it off my leg because if he tore open my leg at such close proximity to the sharks in a feeding frenzy, I would be literally torn to pieces by the sharks.

The problem facing me was how do I get the huge eel off my leg without him tearing open my leg, I had a sharp knife, but if I tried to kill the eel anything could have happened. I decided to do nothing and lay perfectly still. A few seconds later the eel lost interest and swam up to the wired baits. Then a large shark seized the eel and dragged him up off the bottom, other sharks behaving like sea gulls, followed the shark with the eel into the depths.

I resumed the filming of the sharks until the bait ran out. When the bait was all gone, one dominant bull shark rushed in, believing my filming light to be something to eat gripped the light and shook it violently. I nearly lost my hold on the camera housing, then the shark sped off shaking its head from side to side in anger, leaving me with the brass support arm bent at right angles and deep teeth marks embedded in the light.

With no bait available the smell of blood disappeared with the ever increasing current, the sharks vanished into the deep blue depths.

I was lucky to survive that day, through my own stupidity, I placed myself in a very dangerous situation. Once I knew, I had blood and mucus on my leg, I should have aborted the dive, but being sometimes an impatient man, I went ahead with the dive.

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