We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful MICHAEL BEAR. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with MICHAEL below.

MICHAEL, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Everyone has crazy stuff happen to them, but often small business owners and creatives, artists and others who are doing something off the beaten path are often hit with things (positive or negative) that are so out there, so unpredictable and unexpected. Can you share a crazy story from your journey?
Around 2009, the local diving community began hearing anecdotal stories from divers about encounters with a large species of shark, called the Sevengill shark, because it had 2 more gills than most shark species: 7 instead of 5, off the coast of La Jolla. We filed them away for reference and continued diving as usual.

One day, while boat diving off the Pt La Jolla, we headed to our favorite kelp bed to see what we might see. Kelp forests are extremely majestic ‘forests’ of giant kelp, which can grow up to a foot a day in cold water and serve as a rich ecosystem for many species of fish and marine life and which can have an almost ‘cathedral’ like appearance when the sunlight streams in at the right angle, dancing and sparkling with beams of light.

The first thing that we noticed upon reaching the bottom was that there were absolutely no fish—anywhere.

The yellowish-green lighting was also strange and lent everything a deserted, eerie feel. We continued deeper into this spooky, ‘ghost forest’ with its odd, dearth of fish—failing to make the obvious connection in our minds: where had the all the fish gone?

The previous week, this same area was overflowing with life. Sometimes the fish sense something you don’t– I and my dive buddy had just entered the water and were separated by about 6 feet of water, He had his head down, looking for things for photograph on the bottom.

Quite suddenly a long dark shadow materialized between us, moving at a good clip. It took a couple of seconds for my brain to register that this was a fast-moving shark, about 10 ft long. By the time he had pulled slightly ahead of me, I saw the characteristic long ‘thresher-like tail and blunt, prehistoric snout of the Sevengill shark pass in front of me.

The song which immediately comes to mind to describe my state of mind when I saw this huge, ancient species of shark glide majestically between us was the hit song, ‘Help I’m Alive’: My Heart Is Beating Like a Hammer’ by Metric–for indeed, my heart rate spiked as it glided between us and my amygdala kicked in with ‘fight or flight’ instincts at recognizing this Jurassic-era predator.

The shark, for its part, appeared completely unconcerned with our presence–it was simply going from Point A to Point B and it certainly wasn’t going to let a couple puny divers get in its way. This species of shark, while recording very few actual attacks on humans–fewer than a dozen since the 18th century–has been known to ‘bump’ divers who were in its way–as if to say, ‘Excuse me–this is my territory–mind moving out of the way?’

I gestured frantically to my dive buddy, who, head down, still hadn’t registered its presence–making weird, grunting noises through my regulator to get his attention. Finally, he looked up and, as startled as I was, began distancing himself from the shark and aiming his camera at him at the same time. Without a flash, the photo he took was dark and of poor quality–good enough only to document that our encounter had, in fact taken place– to show our diver friends whose ‘motto was ‘no photo-didn’t happen.’

Meanwhile, the shark continuing swimming forward at roughly twice the speed than any human could through the water and the distance between us grew quickly–we tried to catch up with it, but it was futile. This species had 200 million years on us and knew how move. But, I could tell, he wasn’t running away from us–merely moving at what it considered a leisurely pace, with barely a flick of its long oar-like tail. We were left in its ‘dust’ so to speak, gesturing wildly and screaming into our regulators in triumph–we had finally had a close encounter with this magnificent predator–and, completely by chance!

On the way back to the boat, we surfaced, yelling and whooping with excitement, knowing we had a great shark story to tell out friends.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
“In late 2006, I found myself at a crossroads, having come up through the various diving certifications, up to and including Master Diver and having logged over 500 dives, I was unsure where to go next. What could I actually do with my diving experience that would be both fun and educational?

I had seen articles on the Internet about a group called Reef.org, which offered to train divers to recognize local marine life and then log their sightings in a database used by marine biologists to monitor coastal conditions and it sounded intriguing.

So, I began training as a Roving Diver for Reef and logged many instructive dives, learning the various species of San Diego and California marine life through Reef’s seminars and practice dives in and around San Diego and the Channel Islands.

For a couple years, we also participated in the Annual REEF/Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary/SIMON [Sanctuary Integrated Monitoring Network] marine life survey, under the direction of Dr. Christy Semmens, Director of Science for Reef and Dr. Steve Lonhart of Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary/SIMON, where we learned the basics of being a citizen science diver.

Next to follow was training by another similarly named group called Reef Check California (RCCA), whose training was a bit more rigorous and not free of charge as Reef.org had been—but, well worth the experience, involving as it did doing transect line surveys of marine life in the lush kelp forests off the coast of California, under sometimes less than ideal conditions.

Right around this time, I developed a personal interest in Sevengill sharks after having an eye-opening close encounter with one off the coast of La Jolla, so out purely personal interest, I set up a citizen science website to enable divers to log encounters with this species of shark, called Sevengill Shark Sightings [https://sevengillsharksightings.org/]. This project ended up snowballing well beyond the original spreadsheet it started out as and began attracting the interest of some professional shark researchers, as the first of its kind citizen science baseline population dynamics study of this species of shark in the San Diego area.

In 2010, an opportunity arose for further Science Diver training at the California Science Center in Los Angeles, which offered American Academy Underwater Sciences (AAUS) Scientific Diver certification, and provided valuable training in animal husbandry, assisting aquarists as volunteer aquarium divers, helping to feed and maintain the various forms of marine life at the Center during shows for the public.

After a couple of fruitful years at the California Science Center, another crossroads had been reached: where to go at this point?

In 2014, my dive buddy and I had the idea of setting up an ocean-related related nonprofit organization (NPO) that would be focused mainly on gathering and sharing data from various citizen science projects, as well as some documentary film-making.

It would be called Ocean Sanctuaries.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?
Yes, harnessing the power of marine citizen science to bring the wonders of the ocean to the public.

Has your business ever had a near-death moment? Would you mind sharing the story?
‘Near death’ moments? How ’bout the shark story above? :) Since we’re an oceans non-profit, we don’t have anyone on payroll.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://oceansanctuaries.org/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/scubapro.bear/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelbear/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCp2VSwwsEvt4MQstRjNdYzg

Image Credits
Barbara Lloyd, Greg Amptman, Kyle McBernie