After a very early night to get as much sleep as possible, we had an early morning appointment to go swimming with Sharks with a company called One Ocean Diving. This was going to be a snorkeling adventure to see sharks. Because if I'm going to go snorkeling for the first time, it might as well be with sharks, right?
My niece had done this the year before and said it was amazing, so I convinced my husband to give it a try. Maybe it's a bad thing he's up for most anything.
The boat ride for me was rough. I learned I get easily seasick, even with motion sickness meds. They said it was a very calm day, but the ocean sure felt choppy during the three miles out to open sea. Turns out the sharks are attracted to the electricity in the propellers. The boat made it to its stopping place, and as we rocked back and forth getting ready to get in the water, we could see the sharks alongside the boat. And we were still going to get in the water. Internally I may have panicked.
This excursion you really just stay by the boat. You aren't swimming out into ocean water, just staying by the boat looking facedown into the water. If it's safe, the safety experts would allow you to do a short dive.
The guides with us were very knowledgeable, and I really did feel safe the whole time. I am not a strong swimmer and having not really gone swimming in the ocean, I clung to the side of the boat the whole time and just looked down. I was totally ok with that option too.
We saw a few sharks, as well as a barracuda, and lots of fish. We saw some very interesting needle fish, and we got really lucky and saw a tiger shark. When a tiger shark comes along, they have you stay close to the boat. Then you wait for them to tell you if you need to get out of the water or not. We didn't have to get out of the water, just watched the shark come and go. It was pretty amazing.
we had about an hour in the water, but the motion of the ocean was really getting to me. Don't get me wrong, it was very calm and peaceful, and the waves were a gentle rocking the whole time. And that's when my seasickness was getting really rough. I moved to sit on the steps on the boat the last 5 minutes of the excursion because I was trying not to get sick from the motion. I would not survive life on the sea.
Eventually everyone got out and we headed back to land. I would absolutely do this again.
The husband took some great video with his go pro during the trip, so links below to the videos to see what we saw. It was absolutely worth getting seasick.
No comments:
Post a Comment