James Whalen (#83 of the Dallas Cowboys and #87 of the Scottish Claymores) with an instructor at Deep Sea World, Queensferry near Edinburgh.

James is starring with the Dallas Cowboys in the NFL.

Swimming With Sharks

On the night of Thursday 21 June 2001 I was SCUBA diving with Scottish Claymores (and Dallas Cowboys) Tight End James Whalen at Deep Sea World in North Queensferry near Edinburgh. James was voted Iron Man of the 2001 Scottish Claymores team by the fans in an online vote and this was his prize. I was there as I guess no-one else wanted to be shark feed and they thought it would be cool to have a fan in with James.

It was a blast. They had some pretty big Sand Tiger Sharks (just over 3 m long, there were maybe six of them -- also check out this page), loads of smaller sharks and rays (part of the greater shark family) that we got to pet as well as a fearsome Conger Eel (which felt really strange to stroke). I had a great time even though I was a bit apprehensive about getting in there with them. I had to kneel down when the big sharks were near so they could cruise over my head giving me a great view of their business end (very sharp teeth) and their undersides.

You should go to Deep Sea World just to see these wonderful creatures from the viewing tunnel. I only told my parents after I'd been, after all they'd been watching Deep Blue Sea on the TV at the weekend. I've got a shark tooth as a trophy that I found in the sand at the bottom!

Here are photos of James and the sharks that the Claymores very kindly gave me. I'm the yellow wetsuit (just) at the edge of the bottom-right photo.

James is now starring for the Dallas Cowboys in the NFL, and the sharks have a new companion at Deep Sea World – a new sandtiger called Murphy, who was imported from Ireland. Murphy is a young male six-footer, who bit the wetsuit of one of the instructors on one of his first days in the pool. Whew!

You can get videos of sandtigers in the wild from the website linked from the bottom-left photograph.

Thanks to Fraser Bedwell and Ben Gibbs at the Scottish Claymores, James Whalen for being an able and affable diving partner and Sarah Hearn our diving instructor from Deep Sea World.

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