Mike McKinnon

Mike is one of only seven active SSI Instructor Certifiers in Australia. This is the highest professional level you can achieve through the SSI system. Having dived in over 12 different countries and certified well over 800 people from Open Water level through to Instructors, Mike has a wealth of knowledge that puts him at the top of his profession.

Sharks are beautiful creatures

April 28, 2016

It is unfortunate that many movies and television shows over the years have depicted sharks as mindless man eating creatures. While the Great White shark is indeed a ferocious fish that will attack large animals for its prey it is only one of hundreds of different types of shark.

Photo: Great White Shark (Photo: Amos Nachoun/Barcroft USA)

Tourists in their thousands flock to different hotspots around the world to swim with the whale shark. These large docile giants can grow in excess of fifteen metres. They feed almost exclusively on tiny marine organisms.

The Grey Nurse shark with its powerful body and exposed rows of teeth looks ferocious but it also is a very docile animal. Countless innocent and harmless species have been killed over the years simply because they are sharks.

Photo: Greg Nurse Shark http://www.northernstar.com.au/

Many experienced scuba divers travel the world looking for sightings of large schools of sharks but it is becoming rare to find them. For scuba divers diving on the beautiful shallow reefs of the South Pacific Islands the majority of sharks they will ever see are small, averaging little more than a metre in length.

Ian McKinnon