Swimming with Sharks

 We left behind a brutal winter for our family Christmas present – diving in the Cayman Islands. Our teenagers had just become certified open-water divers and were ready to try out waters well above the freezing blue hole at Santa Rosa, New Mexico.

We slipped into the warm Caribbean waters and submerged to the reef below us. At first, m
y dive buddy, Madora, clung to my hand but eventually gained confidence and moved away to explore on their own. I was in my preferred place at the back of the line of divers when something fouled my fin. Odd, I thought, I was well away from the reef and had passed nothing that could have caught my fin. It snagged again and I looked over at my dive buddy. All I could see were saucer-shaped eyes behind their mask. Heart pounding, I rolled over to see what was causing the big eyes.

Just at that moment, a six-foot-long nurse shark swam up beside me. He had fouled my fin. His big eye examined me closely as he swam just off my shoulder. I could see the lens adjusting as we made eye contact. His scales shone gold, green, and grey in the sunny water, each one sparkling as the light played over him. He swam past and went to investigate the other divers. I looked at my dive buddy, both of us stunned by what had just happened.

I looked forward to watch the shark, only to see him swimming toward me, faster than I would like but with no threat in his body. At the last moment, he dove slightly and passed under me, his dorsal fin scraping down my torso and leg. He turned around and swam back beside me, looking at me with that big eye. I am quite certain there was a glint of laughter somewhere in that fishy brain. This time, I was able to examine him closely. Somewhere in his life, he had been snagged on a fishhook and had a large scar on the edge of his mouth. I wanted nothing more than to reach out and touch him, to feel the glistening scales, and the muscles under them. But I also knew better. He swam off and we continued our dive.

On the surface, we motored over to our new dive site, the dive master explaining that they carried spear guns to hunt invasive lionfish, and the sharks and other reef predators knew that sticking with dive groups meant they might get a tasty and free meal. He also told us about swimming along with his hands clasped and dangling below him when one of the sharks had swum into his arms. As we waited for our surface time to be over, we told the teens that their first dive had been a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Once again, we jumped into the water and descended on the next reef. Within seconds, a new nurse shark joined us, this one not curious about us but far more interested in the dive master and his spear gun. In a flash of grey and green, another shark shot over the edge of the reef. It was my scarred friend from the first reef. He and the other shark swam next to each other in an obvious sharky greeting and turned together to swim down the reef, sticking their snouts into holes and then swimming away in disappointment. It was so like hiking with two dogs that I laughed – not an easy feat in a mask and mouthpiece. Sadly, we found no lionfish on that day.

For the rest of our dive, the two sharks accompanied us, bringing an element of absolute magic to an already memorable experience. Two once-in-a-lifetime dives in the same day are now duly recorded in our dive logs as “Swam with sharks. Cool.”