#152 - SHARKS!

duh dun.... duh dun.... duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duhduhduh... SHARKS!

haha, on wednesday i went with my co-worker and her two friends from ohio on North Shore Shark Adventures shark cage tour! it was wild. i was nervous at first, but not really about the sharks. maybe because after years and years of watching "shark week" on the discovery channel i know that 1) sharks don't like to eat people, 2) the sharks that we were gonna see were bottom-feeders so they wouldn't jump in the cage with us, and 3) they do these tours all the time. but my conscience was okay because these guys that we went with started the tour because the site they go to is an crab-fishing site, so the sharks are already there and they know the sounds of the boats (so you don't need to chum the water to draw them in, they're already there). my biggest fear was just being out there in the open ocean and in deep water where you can't see what's coming up underneath you, i kept thinking, what if a tiger or a great white comes strolling along! but they told us that if a big shark came along they'd reel the cage back in (plus, they'd have to charge us way extra if a great white came along, haha)anyway, so we get on this boat, they take us out 3 miles outside of haleiwa (it looked way farther than that though!) and drop this cage in the water. then like 60 seconds later they were like, now let's jump in! whoa! slow down a bit, we just got here, let me gather my courage or whatever. but i think it worked out because there were 10 of us and my group was first so i didn't have time to look it the water, see ALL the sharks and freak out. still, it was so scary getting in the water for the first time, even though we were in the cage, it's still a whole lot of blank blue water down there. but we had a snorkel and mask and dove right in. good thing i went first otherwise i'd have been even more freaked out.the cage was good though. bars on the long sides and plexiglass on the short sides, so that was awesome (and freaky, cause the sharks swim straight for you and don't turn until the last second). the holes between the bars freaked me out though, i kept thinking my hands or legs were gonna go through the bars and get bitten off. it was really rough that day and we were getting slammed around in the cage. i didn't want to hold on to any of the bars but when i let go i got slammed into other people and into the sides so i had to hold on. man after only 20 minutes we were all pretty beat up. but man, check out all those sharks! there were already 10-15 as soon we got in the water. all galapagos sharks, they said we might see those or sandbars or hammerheads or gray reef shars, but all we say were these galapagos, they were big though, most of them were bigger than people. they were pretty calm though, once in a while the crew threw fish outta the boat so we could see them eating, but they didn't get all crazy about it.
all in all it was pretty awesome. all i gotta say is thank the good lord for dramamine because two people on the boat were heaving their guts out it was so rough out there. i took dramamine and i was still kinda feeling it so imagine if i didn't take it. but it was a super cool tour and here's my proof that i WAS actually there. i gotta go develop the underwater camera film now so stay tuned for more!