Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Shark

Went diving for the first time Monday and we saw a shark! It was just a small (3.5 ft) nurse shark - not dangerous, but it was neat to see - our guide made the 'shark' sign, and I thought he was kidding, but then he pointed to the shark tail, then wiggled the tail and the shark swam out of the coral and under us. : )
Of course no one in our group had a camera, including the professional photographer who is doing this trip solely for the photos. Getting a photo of one of the sharks is turning into a quest like photographing bigfoot.
We're set to dive again today at 1 at a different location, right by the resort. Diving near coral is unbelievably beautiful - it is literally like being dropped into a giant aquarium. The fish don't swim away - they pretty much ignore you, swim next to you and between you. It's a lot of fun. E. was true to his word and held my hand - I pretty much had him in a death grip. I wasn't scared per se - just a little freaked out - it's a little weird to be in the ocean, plus it was an extremely rough day - the boat that dropped us off was tossing around in huge swells. I ran out of air pretty fast (nebies tend to pant instead of breathing slowly) so I went up before E. When I surfaced with the 2 other low air people, we couldn't even see the boat - just ocean. That's a little weird, plus we were bobbing around like corks in the waves. Getting back on the boat was by far the hardest part - I have bruises up and down my left leg from being thrashed around on the ladder as the boat rocked. All in all an amazing time. We hooked up with a Toronto dive club for dinner and had the biggest langouste tails I've ever seen, plus real mojitos (with mint), music, actual bottles of wine, plus a star-filled sky and walk on the beach as E puffed a Monte Cristo-like cigar - it was all good.
Our birthday dinner had a few hitches including them having no idea what a private table meant or realizing that chapmagne should be chilled, but we enjoyed ourselves once I got E to laugh about the situation.
Hasta Luego!

Last ni

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

let me know how that money making works out for ya...

Dodi said...

Sounds amazing. Sometimes I think learning to dive would be cool, then I read your shark story and realize I'm too chicken about ocean life. Maybe if I stuck to lake diving only?

Happy Birthday Karen!

Anonymous said...

"Last ni"? Are you retiring from being a knight in a Monty Python movie?

Trackrick said...

Why did my Monty Python post come up as being from Anonymous?