(see http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/winlink.cgi?KG4EYP for latest position)

Today we timed our snorkel to be around slack tide, so we could actually enjoy the nice reefs on the north side of Highborne Cay. I had my spear, and Britt his camera - unfortunately, he was on the opposite side of the reef from me and didn't see what happened, because it would have made an awesome picture.

I had crossed to one side, where a channel of deeper sand cut along the reef, and saw the distinctive shape of a shark cruising along the channel. Now, before you start hyperventilating on my account, I should say that we don't see sharks very often, and have only rarely had problems with them; for us, it's a nifty sighting when we do see one.

This one was a nurse shark, about seven feet long. Nurse sharks are easy to recognize by their small mouths and rounded snouts with little catfish-like barbels on them; the Spanish name for them is tiburon gato, "cat shark" (and in a Colombian aquarium the keepers petted them on the heads like cats while telling us this!) We rarely see them swimming during the day, as they are usually "sleeping" on the bottom under overhangs. They are scavengers, and in fact yesterday afternoon when Britt tossed
the scraps of fish carcass overboard, several small ones showed up to vacuum them up from under the boat. So generally, nurse sharks are the least scary type of shark out here - which is a good thing, because if any other type of shark had come this close...but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Usually, when we see a shark, it ignores us and just continues on its sharky way. This shark, however, changed course and headed for me. So I used the tactic we usually use around curious sharks, which is to look straight at it and swim slowly towards it. Every time I've done this, the shark has veered off while still some distance away. This shark, though, just kept coming.

I swam toward the shark.

The shark swam toward me.

I held out my spear, point first. Not that I was going to spear the shark - I hadn't cocked it - but I figured, in the absence of a proverbial ten-foot pole, a five-foot spear would do. Hah, sharky, I thought. Swim into this!

The shark swam toward me.

Right up to the point of the spear, looking me in the eyes, and then...it ducked its head and slid under the spear - and under me. I could have grabbed it by the fin. (But I didn't, because I'm not stupid.) Instead I twisted around, because who wants to have a SHARK behind your back, and watched it as it kept going, swimming away.

And then I hyperventilated and thrashed my way over to Britt, who'd missed the whole thing. Darn.
- posted by S/V Windom @ 5/30/2007 [link]