Hello form Colorado! My name is Leeds Butcher. Along with my two great fiends, Videographer Adam Dorfman and Diver Jeremy Fishinger, we would like to invite you along on a shark awareness dive we recently did in April of 2012 in St Maarten with Ocean Explorers.

When we signed up for this dive we really did not know what to expect. We knew we were going to watch the hand feeding of Caribbean Reef Sharks, and Adam would have his HD Camera, but we were not really sure how great it would be, if at all. Well, it was great. Actually, our expectations were blown right out of the water so to speak.

On a calm Thursday afternoon we set out towards the dive site, and listened to the dive briefing. Our anticipation had grown larger the last day or two as we had already seen, and dove with two sharks the day before that followed us the entire 52 minutes. When we entered the water and placed ourselves at 60 feet around the semi-circle, the game was on! Our guide Jeff was amazing. His understanding of the sharks was clearly visible in the water as you are about to see. It was one of the most amazing dives we had the privilege to join. Anywhere.

Upon return to the condo we reviewed the footage from the day. Wow! It was fantastic. None of us thought it could have been filmed any better. We all began to talk about how we could help people connect to what we saw by watching the video. The three of us decided that an “Awareness” type film with knowledge and perspective would be the best way to ensure that everyone who watched would be as amazed, and would learn something at the same time. We researched the narrative and edited after returning to Colorado.

This film is close to our hearts as we all have a deep love of nature; Oceans and Land. It is what keeps us thriving, and must be protected. Everyone can help, even if it is picking up a piece of trash each one of us sees on the ground, and throwing it away. Goodness is contagious. Enjoy!