Can't you feel 'em swimmin' around?
You got fins to the left, fins to the right,
and you're the only bait in town.
-Jimmy Buffett
Ok, so some of you may have figured out that the shark in the pic that we ended the last blog entry with was not very big. Probably "only" 2-1/2 feet long or so. Given that we took that picture and these ones from the safety of our bungalow porch, the sharks here began to not seem like such a big deal.
In fact, we saw so many of these little guys that the fear of sharks that (most) humans are born with had begun to fade the next day when we decided to hitch a ride out beyond the reef edge to do some snorkeling with a group of scuba folk.
The first stop was a pass into the atoll's lagoon widely known for large sharks and tuna. We hopped in, looked around nervously for 20 minutes or so, saw some schooling fish, and climbed back on the boat. When the scuba-ers joined us a few minutes later, they regaled us with tales of the 3, 12' sharks they'd seen down in the depths.
Yay! No need to worry - the big ones stay in the deep!
And so it was with no trepidation at all that we jumped back in for more snorkeling at the next stop, a little ways away from the pass. Besides, I thought, Mark's with me. He's had lots of experience snorkeling. He'll spot the sharks. I can just relax and enjoy myself!
Ya, so turns out when deciding who should take on the very important responsibility of shark-spotting, it probably should be the person who's got the better vision. That would not be Mark.
Within a minute of hitting the water, I happened to notice this shape emerging from the dark blue expanse we were surrounded by.
Hmm...I wonder what that is...
OK...maybe time to rip Mark's arm out of the socket and let him know his days as a shark spotter are over(if not all of his days, actually)! But not before I snapped just one more pic for the blog!
Despite (and maybe even because of) our open-water-snorkeling-with-sharks experience, I've become much more comfortable hanging out with these black-tipped reef sharks. Even though everyone says this type of shark "probably" would never challenge anything so big as a human, I'm still not so bold as to turn my back on one in the water. Or stand around for hours off the beach like the Italians at the resort here seemed to like to do.
Or to give my little kids lunch leftovers to throw to the sharks from the shore, like this lady did while we watched on in disbelief!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbIUAlwSoZM
But they were fun to chase around in the water below the bungalows with my underwater camera.
