Dateline: 1998
It was another beautiful day on the water. The sun was shining, the winds were mild, the ocean was blue, and all was right with the world.
We began our dive on this particular day in 1997 at 45 feet. As the first step in collecting fish for the day we proceeded to set up our net. Since we were working Yellow Tang we were using our tang fence net that is 150 feet long. Stan was working on laying the net out as we always do in a V pattern while I placed the bungie cord at the V part of the net to form the bag for the fish to go into. Upon doing this I began to swim to the beginning end of the net to place the catch buckets, while Stan was laying the remaining length of the net down.
The water was unusually clear that day and it was very enjoyable to be in the water. As I began to swim towards the end of the net I looked up with a quick glance and saw a very large object swimming my way. It's one of those things where you look up for a split second and immediately do a double take. Well, at my second glance as it was getting closer I realized it was a very large hammerhead shark about 10 feet long. I froze and didn't take my eyes off of it! It continued to come straight at me, but was swimming slowly, just cruising along. I didn't want to get overly excited trying to get Stan's attention, whose back was towards me and the shark. He was still diligently finishing up with the net. Now, you have to understand that when Stan and I are diving I have a tendency to, what I consider, talk to Stan to get his attention. Stan would say I'm always yelling at him down there and he is so used to it that he sometimes ignores me. You know how it is when you are concentrating on a job and someone keeps interrupting you.
As the shark got closer and closer I knew I had to do something to get Stan's attention. I began to yell his name through my regulator as I always do, but didn't move. I yelled "Stan". Nothing. Again, "Stan, STAN", I yelled. Still no notice. By that time the shark had come up to me within about 25 feet, turned and was heading right towards Stan, who still had his back turned. Not sure of what to do, I picked up one of the three prong spears that we had with us and began to slowly swim towards Stan AND the shark. With one last attempt at calling him I yelled "STAN" again. This time he turned around, looked at me with THAT look and yelled back, "WHAT?" I stopped, dropped the spear and using our hand signals that we do when we are diving I motioned by hitting my fist like a hammer into the palm of my other hand and then pointed with a fist and thumb up behind me, as to tell him to look behind him. He finally turned around and boy was he startled. The hammerhead at that point was right behind Stan and it passed by him within 3 feet, swished its tail, and slowly swam past and disappeared into the deep blue again.
By this time I think I was hyperventilating and it took me about 10 minutes to settle down or even move around, wanting to make sure the shark was gone. Stan waved with the motion of his hand that it was gone, don't worry. We finished setting the net, caught our fish and got back in the boat. This is when I finally lost it and broke out crying. We have been doing our fish collection business since 1989 and it was the first time we had a shark come right up to us like this. The combination of the excitement of seeing the shark, having it get so close, and all the adrenaline that was flowing got the better of me.
After getting it out of my system we geared back up and hit the water again to finish our day of work. Thinking about the encounter after it happened we talked about how magnificent the shark looked. They really are amazing animals, but not seeing another one TOO soon is fine with me.
We always laugh that doing the work we do, our office is our boat and the water. Our suits are wetsuits and swimsuits. So how's that for a story about a day at the office swimming with sharks?
ALOHA!
Debbie Hauter
