September 8th 2009 'fish in the water'

Like most experiences thus far on our trip, it wasn't what I expected it to be. You get this idea in your head, these visual flashes picked up over a lifetime of second hand experiences. Watching television, movies, or seeing pictures creates a jaded image of reality, a smorgasbord of colliding pictures that forms a twisted and grotesque version of the truth. I had always imagined them a lot slower, bulbing masses of gruesome fat thrashing about in the ocean. I had pictured a slow moving fin erupting out of the water and an ever present Steven Spielberg soundtrack drilling on in the background. Duh-duh, slowly at first, booming and threatening. duh-duh, with more sound and intensity the music would gather rhythm as the rear fin slowly started to push itself out from the water. I imagined myself floating in the salty sea and watching the prehistoric beast off in the distance devouring some helpless and unknowing fish. Duh-duh,duh-duh,duh-duh...the music would explode just as the massive jaws seemed to jump from the beasts lips and completely devour,whole, the unsuspecting prey. It was just like 'Jaws', just like 'Deep Blue Sea', it was just like 'Planet Earth' and every other overly-dramatic piece of entertainment I'd watched over the last 24 years. It had to be like the movies, it had to be like television...right? With these jaded notions in my mind I floated on the surface of 'Shark Bay' just off the coast of Koa Tao. I watched the distance with scanning eyes; you could see 40 yards quite well in these crystal clear waters. I could even make out, far in the distance, some of my fellow snorkelers who loomed closer to the boat for fear of something going awry. I had charted off quite a ways from everyone else, staying close to the rocks. Sharks never attacked people near the rocks... Our guide had been quite clear that the sharks we were diving with, Black-tipped Reef sharks, were very friendly, mostly feeding off small fish and growing to about 1m at max. What I had failed to hear in my excitement to jump off the boat, to be the first in the water to see one, was that they preferred life in the shallows. My personal logic and half-wit movie experiences had forced me to believe that I was in the safest place, I would see the massive creatures from a distance, a safe one, a very distant distance that would put me as an observer, not another member of the food chain. When you're looking so hard for something specific, you really start to loose track of whats right in front of you, what's right below you. We were treading water over a marvelous coral reef, exotic fish and strange sea beings swam and floated all around me. Schools of fish danced brilliantly ands glimmered, catching the foggy sunlight so perfectly in their moments of brightness. I wasn't looking for any of these, I had my eyes set for a three foot, noisy splashing shark. One that would make its presence very known, a lone predator off in the distance searching for something that could never resemble my damaged and scabbed up knees. (scabs that seemed to be slowly dissolving in the giant blue saline solution I'd emerged them in) It happened so quick... It was faster than an ocean bird darting into the water... it was faster than a race car whizzing past at the Santa Maria speedway... faster than any fish I'd ever seen...The sound it made? The splashing? Nothing...just silent, quick, and seemingly motionless. There wasn't one, there were two, swimming side by side...They weren't small either...Both were easily longer than my lanky and exposed body...my lanky, exposed, bleeding and wounded body... my fresh as a dead fish body...floating slower than any other prey they might venture towards... I never saw them coming, I didn't hear splashes form behind me, didn't see the fin slowly pop up from the water, didn't hear the jaws soundtrack blaring through distant speakers...I was giving up on seeing one and distracted by the vibrant coral colors that were mere inched from my feet. Watching some unknown fish scamper about picking at the soft white sand. The fish didn't all dart away scarred before they came...there was absolutely no warning sign that the creatures were coming up behind me. God almighty was I in shallow water...And they had come from behind me!!! In what? maybe three feet of ocean current... they didn't thrash about, they weren't lumbering and clumsy giants like the speculation of movies. They barely moved their fins and soared through the water like silent torpedoes. Mouths closed with no teeth exposed, the two beats seemed perfectly streamlined for ocean killing. The two perfect predators passed me without a moments hesitation, if they had wanted I'm sure I could have lost a hand. At, at least, six feet each they were larger than I imagined, not like an over sized barracuda, but fuller in the middle, like a nuclear submarine. I didn't even have time to be scarred, they small by so quickly it has compounded my fear of the oceans perfect killers. No warning, no movement, and not caring about my presence in the least. They didn't care about the fish that swam all about, or my bleeding knees that dangled like bait in the water. These two Jurassic titans came and went in such an instant. I watched them swim away so quickly, they barely moved their bodies, but oh my goodness did they have speed such as I've never seen. Dead eyes starring at nothing, not moving, not twitching, not seeming to notice my frail body. It was too fast to be afraid in the moment, it was almost unbelievable. I had seen what i came looking for, I can only wonder if they felt the same...