IT'S one of the most dangerous professions in the world.
But every day of the abalone season, David "Bucky" Buckland will spend 6-8 hours underwater searching for abalone "gold".
His office - The Great Southern Ocean off Port Lincoln, South Australia - is home to more sharks per square kilometre than almost anywhere else in the world.
But he'll battle his nerves and plunge to the bottom to search for a haul of up to 1000 abalone a day.
The irony of Buckland's profession is that no one in Australia even eats the stuff.
95 per cent of all local abalone is exported to Asia. The rest are sold to areas such as Chinatown and areas favoured by the Chinese, such as The Star casino in Sydney, where one abalone alone will sell for $120.
Buckland gets around US$100 a kilo for abalone meat these days and was getting US$150 per kilo pre-GFC.
Bucky's licence allows him to pull 7.5 tonnes of meat a season, which can equal a haul of $1 million in less than 50 days.
But while the reward is high, the risk is great.
"I reckon I've had fifteen encounters with Great Whites," Bucky - who features in Foxtel's Discovery Channel series Abalone Wars - told news.com.au, "three or four of them have been a bit hairy,"
No one knows the dangers of the profession better than Bucky.
His brother Paul was taken by a shark while diving ten years ago.
"It took me six months to get back in the water," he said.
"But I love diving, it's a whole 'nother world down there, if you didn't love diving you wouldn't do it. That's what put me back in water, it's what I do and I'm good at it. I know all the risks and prepared to take them.
"Obviously, the higher the risks, the higher the rewards."
During the filming of the Abalone Wars, another diver, Peter Clarkson, was taken.
Bucky says the most dangerous time for an abalone diver is descending from, or returning to the boat, as Great White Sharks attack from below. Divers feel safest on the ocean floor.
Abalone Wars started off as an idea for a five minute movie so that Bucky could show clients and tourists what abalone diving was all about.
But the footage was so compelling that Foxtel decided to air it as a three episode series.
Abalone Wars is nominated for Favourite Program in this year's Astra Awards.
You can vote for it along with five other subscriber-voted categories until tomorrow at news.com.au/ASTRAawards
Finalists in the industry categories can be seen at www.astraawards.com
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