Posts
Juvenile White Shark Project Gets Underway in So Cal
The Shark is out of the bag!
We have been operating in the Los Angeles area over the past few weeks preparing for an epic film project. We are here on a mission, to film and document Juvenile White Shark behavior in the wild.
Over the past few weeks I have been busy meeting with many local law enforcement and other government officials in preparation for this project. Getting everyone "In the Loop" and notifying the local agencies of what our plans and intentions was very important to me and indeed very fruitful. I believe that it is very important to meet face to face with the right authorities and local people and show your respect when taking on a major project such as this. I was pleasantly surprised by the reception I received and how helpful everyone was. They all appreciated the fact that I had the politeness and forethought to contact them before I started my project.
One of the contingencies for having the cooperation I asked for from these government agencies was that we kept a "low profile" and not stirred up any unwarranted attention from the media or concerns from local residents . I of course had no problem with that issue and have been publicly quiet about my project.
Well, now that the media has gone nuts over some recent sightings here and the local residents are now "warned" about the arrival and subsequent sightings of these White Sharks, we are now able to share our story with all of you.
Surfers Warned After Shark Spotted Off Malibu Coast
KTLA VIDEO HERE
From the Shark Research Committee site:
Sunset Beach — On June 27, 2010 Scott at SunsetSurf received the following report from Agam Singh; “Shark sighting: 7 – 8 foot White Shark fully breached about 200 yards off the point around 3:00 PM, Sunday, June 27th. At least 5 people saw it and kept surfing. I bailed!”
Our Juvenile White Shark Project has been in the planning stages since March of this year.
We arrived in LA in mid June and began staging equipment and vessels in strategic locations around Southern California. Our base of operations is located in beautiful Malibu, CA. In total we have 4 vessels and several shoreside bases. We have a great communications network set up between multiple vessels and shoreside observation posts from North to South along the coast.
We are geared up and ready for action!
We will be open water diving with our two CUDA 850 Scooter/ HD video camera rigs. These slick little units are stable, fast, quiet and maneuverable. In the above configuration we can cover large areas in a short period of time. In the event we would want to have extended range and cover huge distances we can simply add additional batteries and increase our range to over 10 miles. However I have designed and built a Twin 850 configuration that combines both scooters into one ultra fast, ultra long range machine which I call the "Super Max 1700". This very cool "one of a kind" unit is capable of over 8 knots and has a range of approximately 28 miles. Utilizing a closed circuit rebreather, I can make dives below 100 feet and stay submerged for over 3 hours. To put that into perspective, I would be able to travel submerged from one end of Catalina Island to the other or actually travel (utilizing specially designed navigation instruments) from the North end of Catalina Island to Santa Barbara Island, non stop. HOW COOL IS THAT? :)~
So stay tuned for some exciting reports from us as we embark on this latest adventure!
Enjoy the 4th of July and Ill see you next week!
Yours in sharks,
Lawrence
Read more...
