[ricki]

I have been trying to get into a large school for some underwater photography in calm clear sunny conditions without success yet. I have been trying to figure out a way to learn of such a school near realtime when good conditions are on but no joy to date. Guys that fly along the coast as you do are in the best position. Ocean Rescue/Cities aren't fond about broadcasting this information or set up to do it either outside of fairly rare beach closures.

Spinners (and similar) blacktips account for more attacks on record in Florida than by any other species. There has only been one fatality attributed to spinners however as they apparently don't like the way we taste. Thing is if that first and perhaps only bite cuts a vital blood vessel that could be enough to take you out. Then there are the larger species that feed on the spinner migration that you mentioned to think about. For the most part they seem to ignore us but at other times you can see the shadows chase kiters, spinners now. Riding in the schools is a bad idea as a result. Some kiters may not be attacked but over time, some will. Volunteers? If you knowingly ride in the schools that is what you are volunteering for to be clear on the point.

The schools move, thicken up and thin out fairly rapidly day to day. Spinners will jump fairly frequently too not necessarily correlating well with larger schools. Other than posting updates on here which will be hit or miss, posting tweets, not a lot of ideas come to mind for spreading the word on movement of larger schools. There is nothing to say you need a lot of sharks to be attacked still to see some of the kite based video having a handful of sharks chase you on turns is impressive. Do pilots share updates on things like this in the way boat captains do? Do you have some fellow pilots that frequently fly coastwise that might radio in updates that could be posted? Other ideas?