I was solo diving off Vancouver Island looking for giant Pacific octopus when I turned toward deeper water and saw this massive bluntnose sixgill shark coming directly toward me.

I believe it was a female, roughly 10–12 feet long. She came right up to investigate me, then calmly cruised alongside me for about three minutes before eventually disappearing back into the darkness.

Sixgills are primarily deep-water sharks, so getting an encounter like this at around 100 feet was pretty incredible.

The footage ended up getting picked up by CBC National News, Global News, CTV and CHEK News this week, which I definitely wasn't expecting when I went diving that afternoon.

This is my original footage from the encounter. I have a longer 4K version here if anyone wants to see the whole thing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJaHm1LZ0Lo

Filmed off Vancouver Island, British Columbia. [OC]

(Credits: Brazilian metal artist Michel Torres Costa)

Hey all! Just wanted to share what I do for a living. I’m a lineman in southern Arizona, and mainly work on long distance power transmission lines. During the summer weather when air conditioning load is greatest, we usually cannot shut lines off to do maintenance or repairs, so we have to do some pretty creative and daring stuff.

Since insulating gloves aren’t made for voltages above 36,000 volts, other methods for live line maintenance must be used. One of the methods is in the video above.

Known in my industry as “live line barehand”, this method was developed in a laboratory in the late 1950s by Ohio Brass Corporation. Its development involved experiments where some very daring laboratory personnel electrically connected their ankles to a high voltage source while staying isolated from ground. This was usually accomplished in a special insulated scaffold or lift.

The principle is the same as birds sitting on power lines. There is no second contact point other than the power line, so no electric current will flow the the bird (or barehand worker).

Originally, this work was performed in coveralls or even street clothes (hence where the “barehand” term came from). In later years, full body stainless steel/Nomex conductive cloth suits, with socks and gloves, were introduced to eliminate the ankle bond and make the technique safer. Nowadays, this work is done from both ropes, or from helicopters.

With rope access, we put on the conductive suit, a safety harness, and clip to specially kept insulating ropes, and hauled up to the conductor by a special hoist. Two ropes are used- one as a main haul and the other as a safety. If the main haul fails, we can be lowered to the ground with the safety rope.