Part 1:
I received a phone call about a year ago from my older
brother Jeff. Our parents had always wanted to go to Hawaii but had never made
it. Jeff explained how he wanted to send our parents there as a Christmas
present and wanted to know what I thought, and I was all game! He called back a
couple days later saying that his mother-in-law was going to let him use points
for a penthouse there and that we all might end up going as a family. Of course
I was even more excited to hear that! I went home after that phone call and
googled “swimming with Sharks in Hawaii.”
Once we told our parents, I sent out an email with a link on
it to the shark website I had found asking if anyone would like to do
it with me. I got no response, as expected. It took about 4 months until my
brother and sister-in-law decided to do it with me. We reserved our tickets for
an 8:30 AM shark dive and I was filled with excitement!
April 22, 2013 was a cloudy Monday morning. We woke up very
early to drive an hour to North Shore where the tour was. The drive there was
so much fun. We sang and quoted funny things and it was just great! When we
arrived, we had a hard time finding the boat but eventually did. Some people
were walking away from the boat so we asked them how it was. They said it was
awesome and they saw a few sharks. This was disappointing to me as the
website said they had about 30 sharks show up on average.
We got on the boat and it was so small and I instantly
wondered if this was some sketchy operation. They collected payment and we were
off. There were 2 guys and the one who wasn’t driving the boat gave us
some shark facts on the drive out. We saw spinner dolphins and they
were so cool! Then we saw a whale which is rare at the time in the season that
we went. Its tail flipped up out of the water and it was soooo neat! Already,
the boat ride had been great.
Our guide told us it was a perfect day to go which surprised
me because of the cloudy sky. He said the visibility would be awesome and the
water was still pretty warm. We arrived and the guy driving the boat pulled up
to the shark cage and we tied our boat to it. While he was explaining
how to get into the cage safely, Jeff told me to look around the boat and there
were tons of sharks swimming around us. It was SOOOO cool and became
real to me what I was about to do. The guide knew it was on my Bucket List
and that I was incredibly excited, so told us to go first. We went in groups of
about 6 people and we each had 20 minutes which I thought would be a jip, but
it ended up being the perfect amount of time!
Ammon let me take his underwater camera and I am so grateful
he did. I hooked it onto my goggles and turned it on. I went into the water and
it was the perfect color blue. It was absolutely gorgeous! And what was more
gorgeous than the water color? The Galapagos sharks that were
swimming around me. There were probably 12-15 of them and they came so close to
the cage it was incredible! I was so happy and felt completely at peace, never
like I was in any danger. They are beautiful creatures and I was in complete
awe to be in their presence. They are so strong and powerful but calm and
peaceful at the same time.
Our guide told us to dive down to the bottom of the cage to
hear the whales and we did. It was awesome. I put my hands and legs out of the
cage hoping to touch one of them but was never able to. I started to get cold
and right about then, our time was up. We got out and had a nice warm solar
shower which was perfect! I asked the guide if I could touch
a shark since he was doing it, and he said no. L The other
group went into the water and it started to rain and they only stayed in about
7-10 minutes so I was grateful we went first.
Part 2:
Ammon called me one day and said he had just bought a Denver
Daily Deal to get scuba certified and asked if I would like to get certified
with him. After some thought and convincing words from Ammon, I decided it was
a good investment. Getting certified was a blast! If you ever decide to do it,
I recommend doing it with a friend, so much fun.
After we got certified, Ammon got his mission call and was
leaving in September. We decided we should do something epic before he left,
and of course, I wanted it to involve sharks! We decided to dive with the
sharks in the shark tank at the Denver Aquarium. I wanted to one-up my Hawaii
shark experience because this time, I would not be in a cage. Our CEO John
Horan and a funeral director Marcus decided to do it with us as a last hoorah
with Ammon.
We got there and had a tour with our guides. The scariest
part, once again, was seeing the sharks swim around before we got in the water.
This was a very strict and organized dive. We didn’t really do much swimming,
we got to kneel in about 5 places and observe the sharks around us. It was
INCREDIBLE though! They are used to humans and got so close to us but were
never aggressive or anything. It was such a neat experience and I loved not
being in a cage.
Me scuba diving
3 sharks that were over Marcus and I
I love this picture because it looks like the shark is going
to bite our heads off in the background. This gives you an idea of how massive
they are though.
Marcus, Lisa, Ammon, and John
I think they were both neat experiences and I’m glad I was
able to do both. The great thing about Hawaii was that it was in Hawaii and you
got to see the sharks in their natural environment and go on a boat and overall
the experience was incredible. I loved the shark tank because there were
several different species of sharks and I loved not being in a cage. The next
thing I want to do is go scuba diving with sharks without a cage. I think that
would be the best of both worlds. Basically I don’t think I’ll ever get sick of
swimming with sharks. They are soooo incredible and beautiful and I wish people
could see them like I did because I think it would clear up a lot of
misconceptions people have about sharks. They are magnificent creatures!
