Shark Week: Inside the First Trip to Cuba

Seventy years ago, a great white measured at 21-feet long was captured off the coast of Cuba. The largest white shark ever caught, it was dubbed “El Monstruo.” In the new Shark Week special Tiburones: Sharks of Cuba (premiering July 7 at 10 p.m. on Discovery), a joint U.S.-Cuba expedition ventures into the largely-untouched waters, which are home to more than 50 shark species, to search for another mega shark and gather intel that will be used to inform Cuba’s first ever national plan of action for the conservation of sharks.

Cinematographer Andy Casagrande, a Shark Week vet who worked on half of this year’s new specials, was there to film those dives and spoke to Yahoo TV about the historic trip, which took a year and a half of paperwork to arrange.

Related: Shark Week: Inside ‘Bride of Jaws,’ the Search for Joan of Shark

You’ve been filming sharks for 15-plus years. At this point in your career, how exciting is it to go to a place you’ve never been — and end up filming a shark for the first time, the elusive longfin mako (which become only the second of its species to ever be tagged)?
It was amazing. Just getting the call, “Hey, Andy, do you want to go to Cuba for Shark Week?” I was like, “Well, wait a second, I don’t even think that I’m allowed to go to Cuba as an American.” They’re like, “No, no, we got it sorted. We got the permits. We got the Visas. It’s good to go.” This is sort of a dream come true. I’ve done a lot of really amazing projects around the world, but to be honest, I often go back to the same places: New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Mexico, Bahamas, New Zealand — it keeps continuing through that cycle. To have this new location, this sort of pristine, unspoiled paradise that’s full of sharks — on top of just being able to go to a place where previously we weren’t allowed — was just amazing. To be able to encounter a shark that’s incredibly rare and be a part of a research project involving Cuba and America was just an all-around awesome experience. It was breaking down the barriers, all in the name of sharks and Shark Week. For me, it’s like, wow, I don’t have to be some U.N. worker or some news journalist, I can be a wildlife cameraman and do these amazing things that inspire people. I think people will like it because most of America has never had the opportunity to go to Cuba or really see what it’s like there.

You often hear Cuba referred to as, “Oh, man, it’s like frozen in time 50 years ago.” What’s cool about the underwater world is it’s very similar. Because they’ve had so few divers from the States coming in like you get in the Bahamas and Turks and Caicos — people come in constantly and it’s a very touristic attraction — here it’s very rustic and off-the-beaten path, so to speak.

Because you’re in Cuba, you don’t have the kind of boats you’d normally use — nor do you have any cages. You dive in and immediately encounter large silkys. You’ve been cage-less with great whites, so this is probably nothing too crazy for you. But how did the rest of the team react?
Because I’ve done a lot of diving with sharks without cages, I was pretty comfortable there, but a lot of the scientists don’t have as much in-water experience. They spend a lot of time in the lab and writing the papers. They do some field work, but as a cameraman, I think I spend a lot more time underwater with the animals than a lot of scientists do. I was filming the whole scene, and I see these divers and the silkys, and then I noticed, “Wait a second, all the silkys just disappeared, and these two big remoras just showed up.” I know that remora hang on to very large predators, and they were too big to be hanging on to any of the silky sharks, so something big had moved into the area.

Often the remoras will peel off and check things out, and then go back to their host. I definitely thought, “OK, something big is around here, and the water is getting murkier, the sun’s going down, multiple people in the water…” I just thought it was common sense that we had enough footage, and if the shark was gonna show up, we’ll wait around a little bit, but with the visibility decreasing it’s not a good idea to be in the water where potentially a very big great white is hanging around.

One of the most memorable sequences in the special is when local divemaster Noel Lopez Fernandez starts using his technique (grabbing a shark by its tail, bending the tail gently, and rubbing its belly to sedate it) so the scientists could successfully tag a shark in Cuba for the first time ever.
I had seen people put sharks in tonic before, but mainly sharks in the Bahamas where they’re baiting the sharks and bringing them in for tourists — they’re almost conditioned to come in and go through these interactions. But in a place like Cuba, where they do have some tourism but nothing to the scale of these other locations, it was funny. I actually convinced the scientists [to give Noel a try]. At first, they were catching a lot of these [Caribbean reef sharks, too small for the satellite tags], and I said one night over dinner, “I’ve been hearing these stories about Noel being this shark whisperer and being able to put these sharks in tonic. Why don’t we let him work his magic and see if we can non-evasively tag these sharks, as in not have to hook them and pull them out of the water.” We convinced the scientists that it sounded like a good idea. It was awesome.

But when they got the first shark into tonic and tried to pierce the shark’s skin with the tag, it woke up and freaked out and swam away. We were a little bit like, “OK, maybe this is not gonna work.” But when they finally all did it, it was pretty joyous, glorious, or whatever. [Laughs.] I was definitely excited because it was just a nice change of pace, working with a different shark species, not just great whites, which I’m often focused on.

To me, it was just an all-around awesome trip. Plus, tack on some mojitos, and Cuban cigars, and good food — it was pretty amazing.

Were you worried for Noel’s safety? You said in the special that you’d never seen silkys this large before. They’re not used to being around humans.
Noel’s a pretty big guy, too. I wasn’t too worried. Most of the time, when sharks are in one of these situations, they generally try to flee. They can, of course, lash out in defense and swing back and try to bite someone. That was definitely on our radar. But sharks, although they can be dangerous, they’re generally not malicious. In my opinion, they’re never malicious. They’re just simply predators trying to survive. I think it was worth some of the risks, and Noel is kind of known as the shark whisperer there, so he knew what he was doing, and it was an honor to be there to film and capture some of this historic, groundbreaking stuff between America and Cuba and Shark Week. Hopefully it opens up further doors for other wildlife projects and other shark projects down there. I’m based in Florida, and it’s very, very close to me.

Related: ‘Shark Week’: Inside 'Return of the Great White Serial Killer’

In the end, the expedition didn’t film a great white. Is that something you’d like to go back to find?
I do think there should be other efforts and research expeditions looking for white sharks down there. Not that other sharks don’t matter — of course they do. There’s over 500 different species, definitely all of them need some limelight and protection, for sure. But the great white is the quintessential shark that people think about and the keystone species. If we can get people to care about great whites, hopefully that’ll trickle down to the other species and further conversation efforts, education, and science will keep them on this planet, like they should be.

Tiburones: Sharks of Cuba premieres July 7 at 10 p.m., following the premiere of Bride of Jaws, the search for Joan of Shark, at 9 p.m. on Discovery. Shark Week continues through July 12. Discovery and its conservation partner Oceana have teamed for the new initiative Change the Tide, which aims to create a coalition of engaged organizations and individuals to help preserve and restore our oceans.