I have to admit it is becoming harder and harder to come up with new adventures worth writing about. And to add to that, it is becoming tricky to make them worth reading about. This week I stumbled across a great one though, and I even have a nice little "life lesson" to wrap it all up in a wonderful little package. As the "Un-official Brian Higgins' Summer of Crazy" comes to a close, I have jumped out of a plane, flown in an acrobatic glider (And spent time at the controls), patrolled the mean streets of Santa Clara, and braved a psychotic episode pondering the indifference that mankind as a whole exhibits toward his animal charges. Compared to last summer that is quite a bit, so how do I make sure to go out on a high note: Shark Diving!
That's right, Shark Diving in the Farallon Islands off the coast of California...one more way to risk life and limb, literally and figuratively. Actually, there was very little "macho factor" involved. It is just another example of something that I wouldn't have thought I would ever do (Like walking around Tiananmen Square or getting a boot put on my car in Amsterdam). It all started the weekend before (The one where I was resting) and as with all of my adventures, the internet, Google, and the search terms "Crazy adventures" were involved. After finding the site on-line and reading it over, I found an available slot that fit my schedule and signed up. On Monday, the 21st, I realized that I had missed some of the details like the fact that I would need to bring my own dive gear - dive gear I don't own. This was a bit of a problem, but fortunately there was a solution in the form of Captain Aqua, a dive shop in Hayward that not only rents equipment, but also delivers it and picks it up for you...cool!
Not wanting to wait until the last minute, I drove over to Captain Aqua that evening to see what they had in my favorite color (Lucky for me, my favorite color is black). Now, I will preface this with the fact that I have never dived before and have never sought out a wetsuit for any other purpose. I had no idea what I was getting into...literally. Halfway through squeezing into the suit, a task that seemed to only get more difficult as I began pouring with sweat, I was tempted to buy the damn thing and film an award winning exercise video instead. I can confidently say that there wasn't a camera in the dressing room or I would have certainly heard some muffled laughter from a distant office. The next reality was how tight the thing was. It literally felt like a full body corset, or er, what I would imagine one to feel like...having no experience at all in that area (Phew, I dodged a bullet with that one). This couldn't be right; I either had it on wrong or it must be the wrong size. After uttering assurances that the suit was supposed to be tight, the patient clerk allowed me to try on another one. Actually, scratch that "patient" and replace it with "sadistic" (No offense, the guys at Captain Aqua were great and I would recommend them, but what kinda laugh can I get out of that). I was literally exhausted by the time I got into the second suit and realized that, while it fit less snugly, that would be a problem because I would end up getting too much water into it.
What I didn't realize before is that a wetsuit gets wet inside. How that escaped my keen intellect is a mystery, but somehow I had thought it kept the water out. What it really does is provide an insulating layer that allows small amounts in and your body heat warms it up. In this case, the suit was 6.5 mm thick which is probably one of the reasons why it was so hard to get on. I had a momentary concern about this seemingly insignificant fact since the checklist of items to bring clearly stated a 7mm wetsuit, but there was no way I was up to trying on a third suit. I was more in the mood to take a long nap before braving the drive home, but they only rented dive gear and not beds or sleeping bags (And if they did, they probably would have insisted I take a shower first from the looks of me).
On the way home, I couldn't resist calling my parents and dropping some not so cryptic hints about my plans. "So, I was just in Hayward trying on wetsuits." Pretty subtle, huh? Surprisingly, I didn't need to provide any additional hints. My parents instantly knew what I was thinking of doing. How could that be? I didn't remember mentioning it before. It turns out I had - to Lori. And Lori had not been too thrilled about it. Apparently she had talked to my folks about how glad she was that I had seemingly forgotten about it. Oooh, I didn't see that little hitch coming. It appeared that both my parents and my understanding wife were getting worried that I was tempting fate a little too much lately and might be outpacing my guardian angels. This seemed like a bad time to inform them that I don't believe in the things.
When you work in an industry that you feel takes you for granted and do a job that you sometimes dread, you feign sanity by developing a sense of humor. This sense of humor doesn't always translate well to people who don't share that experience. Lori just doesn't see the bright side of everything like I do since she hasn't spent the last two years grasping for such straws and small victories. So, it makes sense that she wouldn't see the wisdom in a little gem like, "Well, if I get mauled by a shark on Monday, I won't have to go to work on Tuesday!" See, if you spend your daily commute resisting the urge to drive your car at high speed into any hard object (San Jose doesn't have any cliffs), you would see the logic in the statement. Oh well, tough audience. As the week at work dragged on, I pondered the relative merits of watching sharks from inside the cage or outside as they pertained to not having to work the next Tuesday, but I didn't talk to Lori about it anymore.
Sunday night was an exercise in over packing (Three shirts, three pairs of underwear, three socks...) and setting three alarms for 3:45. I'm starting to see a pattern of threes here. Since I needed to be in Emeryville by 6 AM and I had never been there, it seemed like two hours was a safe amount of time to afford myself. If you have ever flown with me, you will know that this is way less time than my normal safety margin would require, but I guess the day was all about living dangerously. To my surprise, I fell asleep quite easily and slept right through to my alarm(s). I got ready as carefully as anyone with five hours of sleep could and was grateful for the fact that I had packed the night before. I kissed Lori good-bye for what I was convinced was not going to be the last time, and hit the road. Forty-five minutes later, I was the winner of the first to arrive in the deserted marina award - Yay!
I wandered up and down the pier several times looking for some sign that I was in the right place. I couldn't see the "Super Fish" anywhere. There was one boat that I could see, but I couldn't read the name. Could it be it? My mind was racing, but apparently was stuck in neutral. Somehow the fact that it was the only boat in the marina with a shark cage strapped to the back didn't mean anything to my sleep-deprived brain. After several laps around the marina, it finally clicked and I calmed down a notch. The first thing I learned about the team from Great White Adventures is that they are my kind of guys. We left promptly - as advertised - at 6 AM. I have little patience for people who show up late or the hosts who tolerate it, so this was very refreshing. There were 10 of us "Thrill Seekers": 5 divers and 5 top -side observers. I spent most of the transit out on the bow of the boat. No, I didn't do the Titanic "King of the World" pose...no one would take my picture.
I had no idea that it would be a 3 hour ride out to the Farallon Islands, but it was. The first part was pretty calm as we cruised past the Bay Bridge, San Francisco, Alcatraz, and glided under the Golden Gate Bridge as the sky started to brighten. As we hit open ocean, it started to get a little choppier. As I sat at the bow with my jacket hood cinched around my face and my hands tucked into my sleeves, I weighed my options: 1) Stay at the bow all the way and risk getting tossed about and overboard or 2) Make my way back to the cabin while risking being falling or being tossed overboard. After about an hour of deliberation, I opted for number 2 when it seemed like we hit a smooth patch. Once I made it back to the cabin, I learned that one member of our party was not having much fun. She had apparently been perched at the back of the boat "illegally chumming" the waters the whole time. I really feel for people who find themselves in this situation, both her and her boyfriend. I'll always remember a ferry crossing from Port Angeles to Victoria where Lori got really sick from the mild rocking and felt like she was dying. At least that's what she told me when I woke up, but I am sure if I had been awake I would have felt terrible knowing there was nothing I could do. That was the situation this poor fellow found himself in.
It turned out that I picked a good time to get in the cabin because the ride got a lot rougher. I figure the "Super Fish" for about 55 feet ,but it was feeling like a small cork most of the way out and I am sure I would have been launched over the rail if I had stayed up front. I have always wondered if maybe I was a "closet sea-sickness candidate" who had never shown his true colors. After that ride, I can confidently and proudly say that I don't get sea-sick, ever.
As we got closer to the islands, we started to see some interesting wild life. I always find myself marveling at sea birds that can fly so low over the waves that you are just certain that they are going to end up doing a face/beak-plant into the next crest. Next we started to see the whales. I wish I had seen this many whales on my "Whale Watching" trip. Lesson Learned: If you have a strong stomach and you want to see whales, take a shark trip! It was amazing how many we saw, and how close they were. One breached right behind the boat and you could really get an appreciation for just how big it was. We were told it was a baby grey whale and, if that's the case, I am glad that "mama" didn't choose to come up under the boat or I might not be writing this today. Fortunately for us, there didn't seem to be a shark/whale conspiracy to turn the tables, or boat, on us.
While we watched the whales, the crew anchored the boat and lowered the cage. Since two of the divers for the day actually were certified divers, unlike yours truly, it was decided that they would go in first. They suited up while the novices were briefed on the "hookah" regulators and the weights we would be using for neutral buoyancy. The first group of divers hit the cage and we milled about topside with our camcorders in a constant state of battery draining readiness, watching and waiting for a big event to occur. People who know me well will vouch for my kind and charitable nature. So it was that I thoughtfully packed up my camera, and in doing so caused the first "shark sighting" of the day to occur. The crew had advised us to be on the lookout for a "bird tornado" and, sure enough, we saw one near the island. About 150 yards away (I would guess) you could see the waters churning and dorsal and tail fins above the surface as a shark had what they call in the business, a "predatory event" (I guess "shark attack" isn't PC...who knew). I quickly gathered that I was probably the only one who wasn't jonesing to see a demonstration of nature's fury. While it was definitely impressive to see, I am not sure I would have wanted to see it any closer. I am quite aware that they don't have Whole Foods of the deep or any giant nautical carrots, but I wasn't here for the carnage. I definitely didn't see the presence of seals swimming around the boat with the same eyes that my shipmates did. The blood slick in the water accompanied shift change in the cage. It was now my turn.
As they strapped on my ankle weights, I went through my mental checklist of ways to avoid the day ending badly. I mentally rehearsed how I would get into the cage; sit on the ledge, check regulator, slide on my butt into the cage, turn around, climb down the ladder, and kneel down. I can do this! As I moved to the lip of the boat to get my mask prepped and get my weight belt on, I recalled the earlier briefing where it was mentioned that the belt had a tether which would hopefully keep me from sinking to the bottom of the ocean if I botched my cage entry badly. With this sudden sobriety, the joke about which way to walk along the ocean floor if I fell in didn't elicit the slightest urge to laugh. Now I know what Lori was feeling with my earlier jokes about mishaps.
As it turned out, getting into the cage was actually pretty easy. Experiencing 55oF water in my wetsuit, however, was a whole other matter. Suddenly I found myself wondering if I should have pushed for that extra half-millimeter back at Captain Aqua's. This unpleasant sensation was quickly replaced by the completely alien feeling of breathing underwater. I often find myself citing instances where my time in the Navy equipped me for success in later life, and this was another example. While I never did any diving in the Navy, I did spend a lot of time in emergency breathing apparatuses and had experience with the disconcerting feeling of hearing yourself breathing, and being keenly aware of when you begin to breathe faster and faster. After the first few minutes of wondering whether or not I had just wasted a lot of money, I started to just relax and enjoy it. I figure we probably had about 20 feet visibility at eye level and maybe ten as we looked down. There was no shortage of life in the water. A few weeks ago, I went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium with Lori and a friend from work and spent a lot of time checking out the jellyfish exhibit. Now they were checking us out. There were tons of different jelly fish drifting through the cage. Some of them I recognized by name, others just by shape. I wished I knew whether they stung or not - another reason that extra half-millimeter may have come in handy. As it turns out, I had nothing to worry about. They were really remarkable to watch as the cruised by. The comb jellies were a particular favorite as they seemed to generate multi-colored lights along their length. It turns out they were actually just reflecting it, but it was remarkable nonetheless.
As a particularly large red jellyfish drifted by within feet of the cage, I poked my cage mate to get his attention. Later I would find out that he had fallen asleep...oops my bad. It worked out for the best however, since within minutes he was poking me back to get my attention. It was a shark, about 10 feet below the cage as far as I could tell. Unfortunately, it is one of those things that is so foreign to see that even when you are keenly looking for it, your brain is slow to process it. It reminded me of the first snake I saw in the wild. Even though I was out looking for snakes to catch, it took my brain what seems like an eternity (But which is probably less than a second) to register the event. That was the case here too, but it was definitely there in a flash of white likely from his side as he cruised underneath us. Since the cage was 8 feet wide and he seemed longer than that, I would guess he was at least 12 feet long. This served as proof to me that the power of prayer was not omnipotent since I suspect both my parents and Lori were praying that the sharks would be on vacation today. It turned out that he was not interested in coming in for a closer look. We spent the rest of our shift at high alert, but we didn't see any more confirmed sightings, although there were a lot of shadows and after a while everything starts to look suspect.
Shift change came abruptly and, along with that, the realization that I was really, really cold. I attribute the fact that my mouth wasn't working right to it being frozen in the shape of the regulator. The next group of novices was lowered into the cage before promptly resurfacing. This repeated a few times before they called it a day and retreated. I would like to think that they too could have benefitted from my Navy experience with regulators and that this would have kept them from wasting their money, but on the other hand it meant more dive time for the three of us who were up to it. I don't consider this purely selfish, but rather a stroke of luck. The rest of the day reads kind of like a shampoo bottle: 1) Weight-up, 2) Enter cage, 3) Watch with nervous excitement, 4) Disembark cage shivering, and 5) Repeat.
We didn't have any more confirmed sightings, unfortunately, but that didn't lessen the magic of the day. I had seen two great white sharks in their natural environment doing natural things. Not too many people you meet can say that. It is petty, but I must say that I was proud to be the only first-time diver who actually spent time in the cage. Whether it is bravery, economical sensitivity, or a combination of the above is not for me to say.
The ride back was an opportunity for some much needed rest. On the last dive my right ear had started to hurt while I was near the bottom of the cage. I think my bad aural genetics and the sloshing of water in and out of my hood at approximately 8 to 10 foot depths was my Achilles heel. I took a nap on the way back and figured I avoided a few hours of watching my less than happy ship mates retching whatever was left in her belly over the back of the boat. And just like that, the day came to a contented close.
Oh yeah, before I end this chapter, I said there was a life lesson attached to this. This summer has been quite an experience for me. I have done a lot of things that observers may consider crazy, and the old Brian would have probably agreed. The craziest thing I have done this summer, however, is only briefly alluded to here. The risks that I have taken to live life pale in comparison to the risks I have taken that have served to diminish my life. I can safely say that staying with my current job, even in today's job market, is the craziest thing I have done this summer. As I have gone from adventure to adventure, one thing in common has been that my hosts have shown a passion for their work that I can't come close to eclipsing. Either they are Academy Award winning caliber actors moonlighting in adventure sports or animal rights, or they have found their niche in life where they can get paid for doing what they love. I have learned that this is not something that is easy to fake. I guess this is a life-lesson that I need to give some serious thought to before I risk losing things I can't get back.
Postscript: Maybe the power of prayer does work since I turned out to get a nasty ear infection and probably won't be diving again anytime soon. Oh well, I can still cross it off my list.
