Sister's Trip '16: SHARKS

So after our ship wreck dive, we headed back to the dive shop and very quickly switched boats to the shark dive group. We did two dives. The first was to check out the reefs and stuff without sharks. Sarah and I decided not to take cameras because we were a little hesitant about sharks biting our hands. Us rule followers take the safety talk seriously! We saw a lionfish (cool, but bad), a giant grouper and another wreck. And the wall. So the ocean on the south side of Nassau has a wall. The water depth is 40ft...50ft...60ft...6,200ft. At one point I could see the deep blue sea of the wall, and high tailed it in the other direction. I was not going anywhere near that wall. My 'how not to die' scuba training did not prepare me for a bottomless abyss. 

The second dive was the shark feeding! It was pretty much the most awesome thing ever. I don't know how many sharks there were, but I would say 30ish. The gurthy ones were pregnant. I got slapped across the face with a tail. Sarah got a lot of swim-bys on her hair. Neal, the shark wranglers, brought a shark over for us to pet! (I don't think anyone else got to do that...) 

Sister's Trip '16 Scuba Videos

Little video clips of our scuba adventure. Sarah was the videographer, so all camera work is on her.

Note when Sarah realizes that we are going in. I feel that her cinematography accurately portrays the 'oh f#)%' moment. 

But not to worry, we emerged.

My scuba form really sucks. I couldn't get past the whole no arms thing. Until the sharks. I learned real fast to keep my arms in genie position when sharks were around.

Another wreck

I seriously thought he was going to try to make us go inside that little hole first. Not ok. I don't know if he was judging the opening or checking for scary animals. Notice how neither Sarah or I were right on his heels at this point. So instead we headed for the larger opening, in which I was sitting on top of the engine while waiting for Sarah to come in. 

Sister's Trip '16: Wrecks Galore

Now, I'm pretty sure Sarah and I were the subject of several bets made that day between the dive crew. We were slightly VIP and I feel like it was bit, 'let's see what we can get these girls to do.' Including, get them to dive inside 3 ship wrecks. So I have this fear/anxiety trigger about being in deep water with big boats...Yup, had to get over that one in about 2.3 seconds as I realized we were going into the hull of a sunken ship and there was no way to bail. Not to worry, though - I remembered my 'how not to die' training from the previous hour and it was all good. 

Sister's Trip '16: And Then This One Time

So, going back to the snuba adventure...After our snuba adventure, we were hanging out at the dive shop and Sarah met up with the owner, who had worked with Donnie on a project and knows Donnie's boss well. In the course of the conversation, Stuart told us to come on back the next day and do the discovery scuba and then SWIM WITH THE SHARKS in the afternoon. We got a little excited. 

So Sunday we got back on the Stuart Cove bus at 8am and headed back to the boats. Sarah is scuba certified, but I'm not so I did the discovery scuba class, which is basically a brief run down of how not to die, making sure you can breath with the regulator in a pool and then throwing you in the ocean with a certified guide. We'll come back to the certified guide part later. 

After my how not to die run down, we hopped on a fancy RIB boat to meet up with a dive boat already out. The boat does two dives and the group was in the middle of their first when we got out there. After some mis-adventure, we made it to the second dive site. And down we went!