07.06.2011 Swimming with sharks

Today, we went swimming with sharks. I have been avoiding the decision to do it until I had to give an answer. Finally I figured yes, I should do it because what an interesting opportunity it is, and how possibly scared of water could I be anyway. Apparently, the answer was, very scared. I was more scared by the water than by the sharks themselves. But oh! I was in the tank with a giant turtle! He is sooooo cool!

Training pool

First order of business was my eyes. My excuse for not attending was because I didn’t have my contact lenses here so I wouldn’t be able to be underwater and see anything. Somehow, I ended up changing my mind and being adventurous and deciding to borrow a pair of -3 soft lenses and wear a -3 prescription scuba goggle. Even with the two prescription pieces, I would only have about 60% accurate vision. After the decision was made I regretted it slowly throughout the day.

It's a sunglasses day!

I went to see an optometrist first thing in the morning. The receptionist was hesitant to allow me to just waltz in and purchase a pair of contacts, but I won, and got a quick eye assessment and two pairs of free soft lenses in my proper prescription. This is the first time I’ve worn soft lenses and they are AMAZING. You can’t feel them! They are so comfortable! And they are actually the proper prescription! Something must be wrong with my hard lenses back home.

the view on from the boat to Manly

 

on the outside of the tank, lookit those sharks!

Turtle!

We went to Chinatown and the Paddy market to pass some time and then headed out towards Manly.

We were debriefed on the shark diving activity, put into wetsuits and given training in the training pool. I don’t even think I passed my training. I was having such difficulties breathing with my mouth while trying not to hyperventilate, or feel like I am going to run out of air somehow that my nerves were all on high alert. At one point I even asked the lady if it was possible to drown out there while scuba diving in the tank haha.

 
sign a wavier, grab a wetsuit...

We finished training and went into the shark tank and I lasted approximately three minutes under the water. I couldn’t pop my ears so going under was really difficult. I think I would be able to breathe more calmly if everything was functioning properly. (ie. If my ears popped) Not only that, but when you breathe out, you get all these bubbles in your face and you can’t see! Just think of the quick jolts of panic each time I can’t see through my bubbles because I’m breathing out of the air thingy and so I want to breathe less so I can see everything all the time, but obviously I can’t just hold my breath underwater… and so all these small adjustments were strangely really difficult.

taking the upper route

I went back up to the top and asked the lady how much longer we had in the tank and she replied, “twenty minutes,” and I’m pretty sure I made a face. She then gave me a second option where I don’t have to walk along the bottom of the tank but instead just take the higher route that is closer to the top of the water. So she guided me along while I stuck my head in the water to get a view of all the fish swimming around. It was really cool. The lady was really nice and would stop and point out the giant turtle coming my way, or some strange looking fish. We’re not allowed to touch them, but if we could I would totally want to swim with a turtle. We could even hold hands.

 

It’s also really difficult to control your body in the water. (mostly because we were all kind of floaty) I tried not to step on a fish that was playing camouflage on the floor and I’m pretty sure I looked like the biggest uncoordinated person ever. If I lifted one leg, my back would’ve given and then I’d try to plant my leg back on the ground yet somehow somewhere not on top of the stupid fish and my hands would stretch out for gravitational balance that didn’t exist under five million litres of water. The same goes to the shark that swam under me while I was taking the short route. I usually just let my legs dangle and do whatever as I pull forwards on the path, so I had to do a strange tuck and frantic roll away from the shark that was in the same latitude as I was so I wouldn’t kick it in the face and then have him bite me in return for the favour.

The tank is divided into two sides, a shark side and an all-the-other-fish side. I finally made it to the shark side and joined my friends at the bottom of the tank. I wonder if sharks could really smell fear because I had a lot of sharks coming up and around me. Every now and then while I wasn’t counting down to the end of the twenty minutes (of underwater terror), I was being told by the instructor, “Stop, don’t move, look to your left,” And I would continue with my uncomfortable, irregular breathing and turn slowly to face another shark just strolling by me. Maybe they can just sense nice people and so they swim by them to say hello because they are friendly like that. I would like to think of it in this way.

 

Twenty minutes later I’m out of the tank, alive, and breathing out of my nose like a normal person. I don’t think I could ever do it again, I just couldn’t get used to being surrounded by water even though I was fully protected. It’s weird (and fascinating!) how my brain just can’t get past itself. I’m proud of myself though, that I stuck through the whole twenty minutes even though I was ready to get out after the first two. (it was also expensive!) And I thought that maybe this shark diving thing would make me more comfortable with water, but nope, it just confirms how very uncomfortable I am with it.

yatta! I don't look like a nervous wreck do I.

we match so much we even laugh in the same direction

We caught a ferry back home and had dinner at darling harbour. We had “Italian food” and I put it in quotations, because it was just as disappointing as I expected Italian food to be outside of Italy. I also accidentally said, “grazie,” out loud when the lady gave me parmesan for my pasta. We had to book it home right after dinner because we had a curfew of 10pm and it was 9:45pm. So we ran and ran and ran, stuck the key into the door and checked our watches, it was 9:57pm! Win!