Shark Diving: Remember to read the fine print!

Devan, Caitlin, and I woke up at the crack of dawn today to go to Manly Sea Life Sanctuary (was only 6:45, but it felt way too early after a long night of writing). The activity of the day: SCUBA DIVING WITH SHARKS! The theme music from Jaws has been going through my head since we booked this last week. Last night I almost started Googling shark attacks... But I managed to refrain. 

We weren't diving with Great Whites or Tiger Sharks, we were diving with Grey Nurse Sharks. Though they look terrifying, they are not dangerous. They don't eat people! They are unable to tear flesh with their teeth, so they only prey on animals that will fit in their mouth. They can grow to a maximum length of about 3.6 meters/11.8ft, though average length is between 2.5 - 2.8 meters/ 8.2 - 9.2ft. As a result of commercial fishing, these sharks are critically endangered, and are now protected in Australia. Fun fact: It was the first protected shark in the world when it was protected under New South Wales legislation in 1984. 

Looks harmless, right? 

Once we got to Manly Sea Life Sanctuary, we were taken on a brief tour of the oceanarium (saltwater aquarium). We went through the under water viewing tunnel and saw the massive sharks, stingrays, and turtles that would soon be swimming within close proximity of us. The oceanarium is approximately 4 meters/13.1ft deep, and holds 4 million liters of water. Isn't that amazing?

After the tour, we went to an office area to fill out information and liability forms ("No, I will not sue if my arm is ripped off"). This is when I realized that I made my second booking error  while in Australia (the first being booking the wrong date for the wine tour). Devan and I were originally going to do the dive a few days ago, but decided to do it Thursday so Caitlin could join us. When they asked me if it was a problem to do the dive before flying to Brisbane later in the day, I thought that it might actually be a good idea. You know, take the edge off, and do two scary things in one day (I'd say diving with sharks and flying are equally scary). However, I totally forgot about the tiny detail that you're not supposed to dive and fly in a plane within the same day (because of decompression sickness). How did I not remember this?? This is common knowledge! I KNEW THIS! The instructors said they couldn't let me dive if I was getting on a flight in the evening. 

So, my options were: 
1) Don't go diving with sharks and catch the 6:20pm flight to Brisbane. 
2) Go diving and book a new flight to Brisbane in the morning. 

Since they clearly inform participants about the dive-no-fly thing in their terms, I probably couldn't rebook my dive. Besides, I didn't want to do this by myself at a later time even if I could! Luckily, Heidi didn't have any huge plans for us this evening, so I booked a new flight to Brisbane, and will be leaving early in the morning. I felt like such an idiot! I couldn't believe that I hadn't thought of decompression sickness. Oh well, now I have learned my lesson. Always check the date, always read the terms, and try not to fit too many things in one day. 

None of us had been scuba diving before, so we were a little nervous. We were given ample training/instruction in before getting in the water and got to try everything out in a little instruction pool. They told us about the equipment, taught us the hand signals that were necessary, and how to equalize the pressure in our ears (very important!). They also reassured us that the sharks were harmless. 

We put on our wetsuits (which was much easier said than done) and adorable dive booties, before being given a weight belt, buoyancy control device (BCD), air tank, and mask. The BCD can establish three different buoyancies, depending on what the diver wants to do: 

1) Negative buoyancy: when the diver wants to descend or stay on the seabed. 
2) Neutral buoyancy: when the diver wants to remain at constant depth, with minimal effort 
3) Positive buoyancy: when the diver wants to float on the surface. 

Did you know that SCUBA stands for Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Aparatus? I learned this trivial fact at a quiz-night at UiT from my classmate, Jonas. 

We had two instructors, Harriet and Rhi. Both of them were great, and without them I don't think I would have managed not to freak out. They were both so calm and reassuring. I'm not afraid of the water at all, but breathing under water is so weird. And much more difficult than I had expected! The fact that huge creatures would be swimming around me probably didn't help either. When we were in the instruction/practice pool I kept asking Harriet if my equipment was working properly. It just felt wrong.  She assured me that everything would be fine, and that things would feel more "normal" after a little bit more practice. Such a sweetheart! 

Harriet and Rhi

We were told that we couldn't bring our cameras with us, but that one of the instructors would take pictures and videos of us during the dive. The video from our dive makes me laugh. Harriet mentioned that we should wave or do something when she was filming because a lot of people just stand there staring. So that's what we did; every time the camera was pointed at us, we would just wave. The fourth person to dive with us, George, is hilarious in this video. You can tell that he is thinking "Is she filming? Should I wave? More waving? Ok." 

The pictures from the dive are equally amusing, if I do say so myself. We look like complete dorks. It also looks like we're having a horrible time and not enjoying our dive the least bit. It's hard to smile or look good when you have a breathing device in your mouth! 

Hello there, I am a dork!

In addition to the Grey Nurse Sharks, there were also sea turtles and stingrays in the oceanarium. The stingrays were HUGE, and would swim over you. You wouldn't notice them until they swam over you and it was suddenly dark. Scary! 

We weren't allowed to touch any of the animals, but this one sea turtle, Sea Biscuit, was very friendly and liked to cuddle. She was brought to Manly Sea Life Sanctuary in 2009 after being washed ashore with a severely injured flipper. Sadly, she had to have the flipper amputated. Fortunately, however, she was able to recover at Manly and learned how to swim again using only her three remaining flippers. We were allowed to scratch her back. 

We all look so excited about this experience, including Sea Biscuit.

Sea Biscuit

This hand signal technically means that they want to go to the surface. Just saying. 

So serious. 

I love that we're staring blankly ahead and there is a huge shark behind us. 

Last picture of the dive. I made it! 

Though it did feel much better after being under water for a bit, it was still pretty weird and I was pretty anxious during the dive. The breathing got easier after a while. I was thinking of getting scuba-certified before going to the Great Barrier Reef, but I may just end up snorkelling. We'll see. Scuba diving can't be for everyone. At least I tried it!

Post-dive selfie. Finally able to smile and show that we did in fact enjoy ourselves! 

Today was a great day. I can't believe we were so close to sharks, stingrays, and sea turtles! What a great experience. The list of adventurous activities is getting shorter, though I am sure that we will be able to find some more fun things to do before we go home in July! 

Love, 
Suzy