Attacking underwater fears

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 18/02/2017 (3332 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

I have seen Jaws and most of the sequels enough times that when I go for a midnight swim in Lake Winnipeg in July, I have the briefest of panic attacks about being attacked by a shark.

I realize it makes no sense and is beyond irrational. I know that sharks are salt-water creatures and the only salt in the lake at Victoria Beach comes from the bodies of swimmers who are cooling off after working up a sweat on the beach.

Still, if a piece of seaweed touches my leg in the pitch black, my mind flashes back to the opening scene in the original movie where the girl goes for a midnight skinny dip and quickly ends up as bait.

I never seem to remember I’ve gone for a million swims and never once been attacked by a rogue freshwater shark.

So, with that kind of irrational fear embedded in my brain, I can’t for the life of me comprehend what made me consider going scuba diving with sharks in the Bahamas in the first place, much less show up for it voluntarily.

I blame the rum.

And what kind of father takes his 15-year-old son for his first scuba diving experience in shark-infested waters? Somebody — anybody — please call the authorities.

When Alex and I showed up at the UNEXSO scuba diving headquarters in Freeport, Bahamas — that’s short for International Underwater Explorer’s Society — we were assured by our instructor, Olivier De Broucker, that everything would be perfectly safe.

“Sharks want nothing to do with scuba divers,” he said. “We make a lot of noise, we blow a lot of bubbles and we have a lot of gear.

“The sharks are not a big fan of the taste of neoprene (our wetsuits),” he added with a wink.

In fact, he assured us, on the extremely rare occasions when sharks do attacks humans, it’s when they’re surfing or swimming on the surface and the sharks mistake them for a seal, turtle or some other kind of sea creature.

“OK,” the rational part of my brain reasoned, “so it’s safer to be down swimming with the sharks than swimming above them. These guys are in the tourism industry and it can’t be good for business when customers get back on the plane missing body parts.”

I passed my scuba certification a number of years ago, but in order for Alex to come with me we needed to do the beginner’s course. As a “veteran,” I was the first to jump in the water about a kilometre off shore to wait for the rookies. I did the basic stuff you’re supposed to do before descending, like spit in your mask and wash it out so it won’t fog up once you’re under water. After I put it on, I put my face in to take in my surroundings below and saw four — FOUR!!!, Caribbean reef sharks sharks swimming around about to metres below my dangling fins.

Did I mention I also watch Shark Week every year on the Discovery channel?

After everybody was in the water, we started our descent holding on to the anchor line. Once I’m down to the sandy bottom, I look up to see Alex, a true gamer, doing all the things he had been taught just an hour ago to equalize the pressure in his ears, mostly plugging his nose and trying to gently blow it.

As I’m kneeling there watching one of the other instructors help him descend, I get a weird sensation that I’m being watched. I revert my gaze to my level to see two sharks — I’m guessing they’re about eight feet long — calmly swimming towards me.

Naturally, I fast-forward through the Jaws film franchise in about one second and decide to vamoose. As I’m kicking away in the other direction, I try to picture what’s going on behind me, which somehow terrified me even more. So, I stopped, turned around and decided to meet my fate.

There they were, still swimming towards me, seemingly without a care in the ocean. Then the first one made its move — to the right — and calmly swam off in that direction without so much as nibbling on my arm. The second decided to follow, also passing up a chance to make my worst nightmares come true.

As the rest of the group settled on their knees on the sandy bottom before we set off exploring, a number of other sharks casually swam by and paid us absolutely no attention. It’s at this point that I truly believe Olivier the expert, relax and start to enjoy the dive.

While we came across countless fish of all shapes, sizes and colours — and many other ocean creatures — a group of eight to 10 sharks were omnipresent. Everywhere we turned, there was one or two of them gliding on by.

Once you realize how harmless they can be, it’s much easier to appreciate their grace and, dare I say it, beauty. I wasn’t crazy about the deadness of their eyes, but now I was nitpicking.

The important thing to realize is YOU’RE SWIMMING WITH FREAKING SHARKS! It immediately went to the top of the list of the coolest things I’ve ever done in my life.

De Broucker, who was born in France, said Steven Spielberg did untold damage to shark reputations by making Jaws and its sequels. He said there are many other animals that are far more dangerous to humans, such as dogs, crocodiles and hippopotamuses, but they never got the Hollywood treatment that sharks did.

A combination of over-the-top media attention whenever a shark attacks a human and primal fears from being outside of our natural environment under water can get inside people’s heads.

“When you know there are potential predators in the water, it scares the hell out of people. But when you get to experience what it’s like to be next to one of these animals, you find out they’re nothing like how they’re depicted (in movies and on TV). They are predators and we should treat them with respect. The change has to come from inside you,” he said.

It helps that many of the sharks in The Bahamas have become accustomed to being fed by veteran dive instructors.

“They associate humans with free food. They are attracted to us even on dives when we don’t feed them. They always check us out to see if we have a scuba snack. We’ve been feeding these sharks for years. They know we’re at a reef where they get constant food,” he said.

(Maybe they should put “Swim with FULL sharks” on the brochure.)

Unbeknownst to me, Alex wasn’t anywhere near as freaked out as I was.

“I was focusing on making sure the pressure in my ears was OK,” he said. “That was a bigger deal than the sharks. I still think they’re scary, but they won’t attack you unless you provoke them.”

He never thought we were going to die — but he did admit to having one thought as the first shark swam by.

“Whoa.”

geoffkirbyson@mymts.net