Shark Tooth Dive

On Tuesday, June 15 I went on a shark tooth SCUBA dive with Capt. Gil Cross into the Gulf of Mexico just of Manasota Beach. Gil has a 50 foot boat but only carries 6 paying passengers on a trip. It is licensed as a "six pack" boat!

When I got to the dock Gil was up on the flying bridge waiting for me but I did not see anyone else around but did not think it was odd since I was early. I jokingly said "Is it just you and me today?" and he replied, much to my surprise, "Yes, just you and me." I still thought he was joking, but not so. He said he was going to do some diving also since he makes an income from the sharks teeth he finds as well as other fossils.

For those who may not be aware, the Venice, Florida area is a very good place to find fossilized sharks teeth and other fossils. The teeth range in age from 2 to 35 million years old!!

On the first dive we went to a spot that was about a mile off shore of Manasota Beach and in about 30 feet of water. Gil came up with about 10 small teeth that could be used to make necklaces but I came up empty handed. We moved to spot closer to shore and over a reef that runs parallel to the beach in about 18 feet of water.

Because of an equipment problem Gil did not dive this time and he watched my bubbles from the boat. I was down only about 15 minutes and say what looked like a broken shell in a crevice of the reef. When I picked it up I realized I had a real nice Megalodon sharks tooth that was about 4 1/2 inches long. It was covered with marine "stuff" on it but it still was quite apparent what it was. A little later I found a second tooth but it had a corner broken off and was not a nice as the first one.

Here is a picture of it if you have never seen one.
It did not clean up as well as I would have liked but I will talking to Capt. Gil about how to clean it up better.

We leave this Sunday for 5 days on the east coast at Sebastian Inlet State Park and I may get to
do some diving there. At least I will take my gear and see how it works out.