Days of Wine and Sharks, Vol. III

Part the Third

(Pre-story note: Cary already did a great write up of the shark day here. Consider mine supplemental.)

I wake up about 10 minutes ahead of the alarm, about 4:15. Jump in the shower to get myself moving, hitting myself with a blast of cold water at the end to make sure I’m awake. I get my bags and meet Cary and Kelly in the hotel lobby. We check out and head to the marina, which only about 10 minutes from the hotel. In the car I reflect on that last words that most of my friends said to me before I left, most of which were variations on “you are so going to die.” I also think about my sister, who I’ve listed as my emergency contact. My parents have no idea about this trip, and if things go badly, it’s up to her to tell them how I went out.

There are a group of guys standing down by the docks who point us towards our boat, the Superfish. I’m mildly disappointed that the boat doesn’t have a big cape, but I get over it pretty quickly. The cage that will act as our observatory/watery tomb is hooked to the back of the boat. James, the lead guide for the day, is already on board and tells us to come on up. We’re the first to arrive, the first to line up to be a hot lunch as Hooper put it. The other divers and observers arrive, and we get under way just after six. It’s an interesting mix of people, some in their 20’s, some in their 30’s, and a few really old, decrepit people, like Cary. Along with Captain Mick and Sean the Deckhand, we’ve got a pretty full boat.

It’s a three-hour ride out to the Farallones and we head out as the sun is starting to come up. It’s a pretty great way to take in a view of the Golden Gate Bridge. This will easily be the longest amount of time I’ve spent on a boat in one day. I’ve never been prone to motion sickness, so I’m hopeful that holds true today.

The three hours flies by. I spend a good amount of time just holding onto a rail and taking in the sight of the endless ocean. Along the way, nature puts on a little show for us as porpoises and whales burst forth from the waves. The only time I got a little freaked out about the trip was about a week earlier. I was drifting off to sleep at home when it occurred to me that the creatures we’d be seeing were out there RIGHT NOW. Whatever I would see underwater was already out there, living its life simultaneously to mine.

It was just a weird feeling. These weren’t creatures contained in aquariums. They had total freedom to go anywhere, and on that day, nothing but random chance would bring them into contact with me. I’d be throwing myself into an environment totally alien not just to me, but to my entire damned species. I had strange dreams that night.

Everybody aboard is cool, so we have a good ride out to the islands. Before I know it, Cary tells me they’re starting to come into view. The Devil’s Teeth, as they’re known, are becoming clear in the distance. No more than nine members of the forestry service ever live here at a time, and it’s been declared a wildlife sanctuary for the sea lions and birds that call it home. For three months every year, great whites congregate here. Then people like us pay to get in the middle of all that. I tell myself it’s cheaper than a cocaine habit.

We arrive a little after nine, and the first group suits up to go in the cage. Because the sharks that make this their home base are mature sharks, there’s no point in chumming. They’re attracted to mammal blood. Instead, the team uses sea lion decoys. I think about asking if they ever consider stopping by a butcher shop and getting cow blood. Then I can’t decide if this is a stupid question or not, so I just keep my mouth shut.

The first group goes into the water. After they’re in, the crew asks who wants to go next. We step up, and go get our wetsuits on. This takes something like 50 hours. I finally get set in my wetsuit, and the first group comes back up. We get fitted with our ankle weights, then the chest weights just before we slide into the cage from the back of the boat. Cary goes first, then I’m up, with Kelly to follow.

Whew. This is it. James tells me to take a few breaths to get used to breathing through the regulator, since I’ve never been diving before. I slide to the cage, turn around, and begin to slide down. There’s an initial moment of panic when I think I can’t breathe. I realize I can, and calm down. It’s incredibly disorienting to be underwater at first, but I make my way to my side of the cage. I stand there for a minute, and Cary gets my attention and motions for me to crouch the way he is.

I finally start to orient myself to the cage. The sensation of the tide is amazing. Even with the cage just hanging from the back of the boat, if you lean forward it feels like you’re flying. Kelly makes her way into the cage, and the three of us start to look around. We spot a giant jellyfish, an incredible thing to see at first. By the end of the day, we’ve seen 60 of the bastards and they’re old hat. Visibility changes by the moment, sometimes as much as 30 feet, other times it’s nearly impossible to see your hand in front of your face. You’re also taking in plankton by the faceful, which is unsettling.

Did I mention the water was goddamned freezing? Well, it was. The dive company recommended a 7m suit for all divers. Mine was 3, but I also had a vest with my hood attached, so my core was protected with 6mm. That would usually take care of the temperature problem, but normally you’d be swimming and generating heat. We were locked into the cage and not moving much, so I spent much of the day freezing my ass off.

We ended up going into the cage three times total over the course of the day. Seasickness kept knocking out different divers, so there was more opportunity for us to spend a lot of time in the cage. I flew across the country for this, I wasn’t going to miss out on anything. The Superfish was equipped with a hot tub filled with seawater, so between dives you’d jump in there and reheat your body. Reheating your soul is up to you.

It’s weird what goes through your mind in such a foreign situation. Here I am, as far away from my everyday life as possible, literally thousands of miles away from almost everyone I know and submerged in the ocean. Speech communication with any other human being is impossible, so it’s pretty much just you and your thoughts. My thoughts and I aren’t always on speaking terms, so it can be kind of tough to be stuck with no one but your inner monologue to talk to. My mind drifts around from a laser focus for sharks to wondering what I could have/should have done differently in life and back about a thousand times every time I’m in the cage. It was kind of therapeutic and certainly more helpful than going to an actual therapist was. I may still be a disaster as a human being, but at least now I have an insane story to tell.

Cary and I made our final trip into the cage. We’ve been down about 10 minutes when he taps me on the shoulder, pointing below. About 15 feet down, the definite outline of a shark swimming past. It looks to be maybe 12 to 15 feet. We lose site of it, then it circles back around to my side of the cage and continues back under the boat. Cary surfaced to tell the crew we’d seen a shark (the first of the day). We catch one more glimpse of her, but that’s it. Even with our brief encounter, you get a sense of the sheer power of these things.

I came back up for the last time and jumped back into the hot tub. Cary, who shall be known as Namor from here on out, stayed in the water for nearly half the time we were out there as more and more divers were felled by the water temperature and seasickness. The ride back into San Francisco gave us another show from the whales and plentiful beer for us to tell our stories over. Cary and I already started making plans for either another shark trip or something a little more…crypto zoological.

We got back to the docks and said our goodbyes. I called my sister and told her I had indeed survived. We stopped at an In-N-Out Burger, where all three of us inhaled burgers and shakes. I was out like a light as soon as I climbed back in the car, and Cary drove us to the condo his hid parents had rented so we could meet back up with his family. We still had another full day ahead of us, though.