Dateline: 1998
Spending many a day in the water collecting tropical fish in Hawai'i has it merits. However, on one particular day I was in for more of a surprise than I expected.
The water down under was clear blue. It was one of those wonderful rare days where you feel like you can see for miles. Collecting had gone well and we were just finishing up our dive in about 35 feet of water. Stan was starting to pick up the net, while I had gathered the fish collecting buckets.
Waiting for Stan to finish up I took a look around and spied a coral ledge that dropped off into a nice sand hole. Getting Stan's attention I hand signaled to him (tapping my finger on the front of my mask and then pointed in that direction), that I was going to go swim over to the the ledge and check it out. I dropped the fish buckets where I was, at some distance away from Stan, and joyfully started out. On a clear day like this one it was such a pleasure to be there, and I was excited to see what I could find on the ledge. With a drop off ledge like this one that goes from the coral at about 35 feet into a sand hole at about 50 feet, you can find all kinds of harder to find fish, like Fremblii's, that inhabit this type of terrain.
About half way to the ledge I spotted something very large out in the sand hole that was starting to swim my way. I paused for a moment, not wanting to think that it was what I thought it was. As it got a little closer I realized that it WAS in fact a very BIG gray shark that looked to be about 10-12 feet long. I immediately started swimming back towards Stan, but did so swimming backwards, combined with grabbing and clawing my way along the bottom, not taking my eyes off the shark at the same time. The shark was in no hurry, but there was no doubt that he wanted to check me out, because it was still headed my way.
I started yelling to Stan through my regulator to get his attention. Stan later said that when he looked up at me all he could see was, "me, swimming as fast as a bullet with a line of air bubbles trailing straight behind me, and my little flippers going so fast they looked like a blur." I dashed past the fish buckets (that I had dropped earlier), and while still swimming, AND keeping an eye on the shark, I hand signaling to Stan that there was a SHARK behind me!
Now you have to understand that hand signals are important, and in all my excitement I was giving Stan the signal that there was a big EEL around, so you can imagine his confusion at what I was trying to tell him. As I frantically kept giving him the wrong signal, he shrugged his shoulders as to say, "so... no big deal".
When I finally reached Stan I grabbed his arm and hid behind him for protection (better him than me, LOL). I pointed in the direction where the shark was coming from behind me, and Stan finally spotted it. We both stopped... watched... and waited... to see what the shark was going to do. It stayed its distance, but did make a wide circle around the area and then disappeared from view, which was rather unsettling to me. Running low on air we had to pick all the gear up and head for the surface.
At this point Stan pointed to the fish buckets, off in the distance where I had dropped them earlier, and then pointed at me to go get them! Pointing at myself and shaking my head NO, Stan could understand from my motions I was saying, "NO WAY!! ME GO GET THEM? I'M NOT GOING OUT THERE!!!" Stan once again pointed at me and then the buckets. I knew Stan was saying to me, "you left them there, you go get them". He was right. The fish buckets were my responsibility. He would pick up the net, I'd get the buckets, and we'd head for the surface.
Not wanted to leave Stan's side I took a deep breath and swam as fast as I could, trying to keep an eye out all around me at the same time for any sign of the shark. Quickly grabbing the buckets and turning to swim back the way I came, it resulted in a hard yank to my arm. You have to remember that pulling six - five gallon buckets under the water offers great resistance, and the drag really slows your swimming speed down. Needless to say, I could not swim as fast as I had wanted to go to get to the surface and back into the boat. Plus, I had to make a stop at the decompression line to clip on all the fish buckets, which being in that mid-water stage REALLY made me feel like bait! The trip up seemed like it took forever, but we did arrive safe and sound.
Sitting on the boat afterwards we discussed what had taken place. The main points I learned were, always use the proper hand signals, never abandon the fish buckets, and I found out how fast I really can swim when properly motivated. ADRENALINE RULZ!
Debbie Hauter
