World Record Diving Malta took on a Finathon Challenge this November in order to raise funds for Project Aware, a non profit organisation dedicated to saving our oceans. The Finathon Malta Challenge for 2015 saw WRDMalta team member Sean McGahern stay submerged in a tank with sharks, rays and other species over a number of days in order to raise awareness about shark conservation and to try and change people’s misconception about sharks, who are in fact a misunderstood species. The event took place at the Malta National Aquarium in Tank number 15.
During the months building up to the Finathon Challenge, Sean and the team organised a number of overnight training dives in order to become comfortable with the set up, familiar with the species inside the tank and to see how these would actually react to having Sean present inside their home. Once confident, the Finathon Challenge was confirmed both by World Record Diving Malta as well as by the Malta National Aquarium and the date was set for the 4th of November.
The morning of the event the team arrived at the Aquarium bright and early to start setting up. The WRDMalta team, assisted by the Adventure Diving Malta & Malta National Aquarium team were present on standby throughout this event in order to assist and constantly monitor Sean during his progress. All the equipment such as cylinders, spare regulators, safety diver kit, oxygen tank etc were set up whilst Sean was assisted to slip into his O’Three undersuit and O’Three drysuit (sponsored by O’Three Drysuits Ltd, UK). Before zipping up, one quick break downstairs to the tank viewing window for a short interview and then, game time! At 9.45am Sean was assisted into his Diamond side-mount harness (sponsored by Dare to Dive) and dry-gloves whilst standing in the landing pool above the viewing window. Hood on, side mount cylinders in place, dive computers and mask ok, it was time for Sean to slide off the ledge, (where the zebra shark was waiting to welcome him) and make his descent down to the sand patch inside Tank 15. Aquarium visitors, staff members, team members and media personnel immediately greeted Sean from the viewing window. When asked how he felt once he was in the tank, Sean’s reply was ‘Now I know what a fish living in a bowl feels like’.
The operational side of the challenge ran from the area above Tank 15. Here, the Malta National Aquarium provided the team with bathrooms, a compressor room, a small office as well as a section dedicated to storing Sean’s back up equipment, Sean’s drinks, etc. The team was able to monitor Sean both from the viewing window downstairs as well as from the ‘office’ upstairs via the underwater CCTV system which was placed inside the tank and also streamed live online. Sean was able to communicate to the team using wet notes to write on (sponsored by Dare to Dive), which he used not only to advise the team on how he is feeling or what he requires, but also to ‘talk’ to the aquarium visitors and answer their questions. Support team communication to and from both the viewing station downstairs and upstairs was done via walkie talkies. Whenever Sean asked for something, example a drink, the support team member downstairs would radio up to the team member upstairs, who in turn would send down Sean’s requested item using a weighted net bag, a system that worked rather smoothly.
The event ran over 5 days during the operational hours of the Malta National Aquarium (10am to 6pm). Although the original intention was to spend 24/7 inside the tank with the possibility of setting a new world record for the longest scuba dive in a controlled environment, this idea was soon put to one side due to the fact that Sean did encounter a few problems at the start of the dive and did need to surface, not to mention also the fact that the black tip sharks were refusing to eat with Sean inside the tank.
Although having a slight fear of sharks himself, as well as not so comfortable with the size of the 5 eels inside the tank, Sean soon bonded with these species and did in fact even snuggle up with some of them at times. Surprisingly enough, the species to show the most “aggression” towards Sean, were the French Angelfish who seemed to be having a great time nipping at Sean’s mask and hood, puncturing holes in his suit and at one point even biting a chunk out of his upper lip. His reaction was rather amusing to the spectators to say the least, especially since the French Angelfish did draw blood which made Sean slightly paranoid, being in a tank with sharks. However, we are proud to say that the sharks had absolutely no reaction to this and continued to happily swim along, pretty much ignoring Sean.
To
pass the time, Sean answered questions directed at him by the aquarium visitors,
played OXO on the tank window with kids as well as charades and other games. Moreover,
on day 3, Sean came to realise that there were a number of shark teeth buried
in the sand beneath him, following which Sean spent quite a few hours a day on
a treasure hunt, collecting different shapes and sizes of teeth from the various
species within the tank. These have now been passed on to Greg Nowell from
Sharklab-Malta to determine which tooth belongs to which species . These will
hopefully soon be available on display at the Malta National Aquarium.
Sharklab-Malta worked closely with WRDMalta on this event and organised various awareness activities regarding the various types of shark species and discussing the work that they do around the Maltese islands. Project Aware also featured with a number of educational videos about how we can help protect our oceans shown throughout the event . To date, WRDMalta & Finathon Malta have managed to raise €600.00 through this event which was donated directly to www.finathon.org/Finathon-Malta. This page will continue to run until the end of month and we do encourage you to keep on donating to help protect vanishing shark species!
When asking Sean how he felt about the outcome of the challenge his reply was: “I had such a great time interacting with the public, seeing their faces light up once they realised that I was in fact a real diver and not just a dummy, and watching the kids, (j)awestruck by what they were seeing was absolutely fantastic. Communication was obviously limited being inside a tank but I am pretty sure that I interacted with quite a variety of different nationalities which is great – people will go back to their countries and mention Finathon Malta and what the challenge was all about and in turn further raise awareness about shark conservation. Needless to say, watching the teams’ (WRDMalta, Adventure Diving Malta, Sharklab-Malta as well as the team from the aquarium) attempt to keep me amused was rather entertaining in itself – so definitely a big thank you goes out to all those who were involved!! The feedback from the public about my Finathon Challenge has been tremendous. Do I feel like I have accomplished something? Definitely! Will I do it again? Time will tell J.
Everyone
at WRDMalta is thrilled to have helped raise funds for Project Aware whilst
educating people about the vanishing shark species and raising awareness about
shark finning, by catch and overfishing and promoting shark conservation both
to children and adults alike. We would like to say a massive thank you to the
Malta National Aquarium for their help and support throughout – without them
this event would not have been possible. A huge shout out also goes to
Sharklab-Malta and Project Aware for their constant hard work as well as to our
main sponsors Adventure Diving Malta, O’Three Drysuits Ltd, Dare to Dive, Scuba
Essentials Malta and Innobeam International for your kind help. Finally, thank
you to all those who donated towards Finathon Malta 2015, whether via the
donation link (www.finathon.org/Finathon-Malta,
the donation box, the raffle or directly to a team member, you have all helped
make a difference for sharks! 