Diving Heaven

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Clumsily kneeling on the bottom of the ocean floor I anxiously wait to be kissed by a dolphin. The trainer in the center of the circle points in my direction and the dolphin coyly swims towards me. Stopping inches from my face she purposely twist her rubbery body to look me in the eye. I take my regulator out of my mouth and pucker up. Slowly she places her lips on mine and we kiss. Well, its more like we blow bubbles at each other, but still the moment is intimate and wonderful. She looks me in the eye and smiles the whole time, apparently laughing at the ungainly creature blowing bubbles in her face. Suddenly the mood is broken, the trainer signals the dolphin to return for her reward and she happily obeys. Our moment is gone; two mammals crossing in the night.

Still starry eyed and in love I awkwardly climb up the ladder to the dive boat. In the distance I can see my new dolphin friends jumping in spinning out of the water as they follow their trainers boat back home. I just had the best diving experience of my life, but the day is young and I still have two more dives ahead of me. Each will be unique and distantly different from this one. On this magical morning I had the honor to swim and dance with dolphins. Later I will explore the colorful coral canyons of the Grand Bahamas, and for the grand finale I will venture into the infamous shark rodeo, where wranglers feed wild sharks by hand. Each one of the dives by themselves is a classic dive, but to do all three in one day is pure diving heaven!

The second dive at the coral canyons starts off with a bang, or a snap to be more precise. My first sight upon splashing into the water is the curved beak of a very large loggerhead turtle. He carelessly flaps away like a slow moving spacecraft and I follow close behind. He leads me into the coral maze, like the white rabbit leading Alice into Wonderland. Reef sharks patrol the shadows on the perimeter while gangs of jack fish cruise overhead looking for trouble. I follow the loggerhead deeper into canyons of purple sponges and blood red coral until he tires of the game and shoots off with one grand flap of his arms.

Giant Nassau groupers accustomed to being fed follow me around smacking their big bubbly lips. A florescent blue queen trigger fish spots a human feeding some small grunts and quickly takes charge, fending off all competition. Every hidey-hole I peer into houses an embarrassed red squirrel fish trying to get some sleep. I am hypnotized with the colors and every turn of my head astonishes me. The colors, the shapes, everything is surreal.

Hovering over a sandy patch I watch wide-eyed as the parade of animals march by. My air gets dangerously low and I realize I should return to the surface. The dive unfortunately last shorter than I planned because my turtle guide brought me deeper than I intended, but I am thankful for the time that I had. At my safety stop I impossibly try to recall all I have seen today when a reef shark makes a slow pass, eying me with curiosity. "That’s right" I thought to myself, "I’ve got one more dive today, the infamous Shark Rodeo". Though I am excited for the dive, I am also quite frightened, the idea of diving in the middle of a feeding frenzy scares the daylights out of me.

"Let me get this straight" I asked my girlfriend "you want to purposely get into the water with sharks? Have you gone mad, your more scared of sharks than anybody I have ever met, in fact you’re obsessed with sharks. Why in the world would you want to dive with sharks?"

"Well," she coolly answered with all her Swedish sensibility "it’s the only way I am ever going to get over my fear of sharks"; and so the idea of a shark dive was born. If true courage is overcoming your fears, then my girlfriend is the most courageous person in the world.

Adrenalin is pumping through my veins as a six-foot reef shark heads straight at me. There are fifteen or twenty other sharks gliding close by, but this one seems intent on swimming straight at me. The features of his face are becoming clearer, his intense eyes, his snarling mouth, and of course, his frightening rows of sharp pointy teeth. He is getting closer and closer. Is something wrong, am I about to become the first ever casualty at the shark rodeo. My instincts take over and my body prepares for an attack. I quickly draw in a breath and all my muscles tighten. I am frozen as the shark swims within inches of my face, and at the last second before contact, passes safely overhead.

My girlfriend alongside me is clutching onto my arm with both her hands. Her nails dig into me and I think to myself- please don’t bleed, please don’t bleed! The safety divers on both sides of our small group are wearing medieval looking suits of armor to protect themselves from the sharks. Where is my protection? I feel naked against the brutal possibility of attack. Earlier, during the dolphin dive, I was impressed with the dolphins’ cheerful manner and happy go lucky attitudes, but here with the sharks everything is strictly business. The sharks are dark and brooding, they think only of their stomachs.

The shark wrangler appears in front of us clad in armor and prepares to feed the numerous sharks that are congregating around him. He picks an opportune time and flourishes a dead fish in front of an approaching shark. Spotting the bait the shark makes a rush for the wranglers’ outstretched hand. He opens his mouth and goes for the fish, but the wrangler elegantly draws the fish away by moving his arm in a semi-circling and twisting his body to the side, as a matador would lead a charging bull through his red cape. The shark follows the motion of the fish and is rewarded when the bait drops into his mouth. I am close enough to hear the crunch of his powerful jaws crashing down on the fish. Its breathtaking, the power and grace of the sharks, the bravery and control of the wrangler, it’s both beautiful and frightening at the same time. The wrangler continues to astonish us by actually hypnotizing a shark by rubbing its snout. He lifts the stunned shark by its fin and brings it over to our group to examine. We touch him and feel the power of his muscles under his rubbery skin.

Back at the Tiki Bar in Port Lucaya we eat conch fritters and drink margaritas as the sun cools itself in the raising sea. We are emotionally drained and sink into our chairs. What can we say to each other after a day like today? It’s like we just woke up from an incredible dream and are still in that place between consciousness and unconsciousness. Images of the smiling dolphins, the flight of mystical turtles and the serious business-like stares of the reef sharks continue to flash through my head. I can not conceive of three more diverse and provoking dives that you can experience all in one day; truly a day in diving heaven.