But, are there any sharks?

When you swim in the ocean, you are swimming with sharks

It's that time of the week again—the day after I miss a post. I've written, written, and even more written many posts, but none I want to release into the wild. I need to release something today, so this will be a down and dirty behind-the-scenes post.

The picture included in this post was taken at Half Moon Cay in the Caribbean just before I decided to chase scuba divers while snorkelling. Up until that point, I had never been scuba diving, only snorkelling. We were on a cruise with Holland America, and Half Moon Cay is a tiny island they own in the middle of nowhere. A dive boat took us to a reef where we could hang out and snorkel with tropical fish. Some people went scuba diving. The rest of us just paddled around feeding fish.

One of the people in our group called up to the ever-so-helpful Skipper on the boat and asked her, "Are there sharks here?"

"Can't say there are," the Skipper replied. "Can't say there aren't."

See? Helpful.

As I paddled around, I saw scuba divers below me and decided to follow them. The ocean floor was only about 15' deep, so I could easily dive down and pretend I was scuba diving. I followed them around for about 30 minutes before I decided to pop my head above the water and see where we were.

I was in the middle of the ocean. The boat we arrived on was a tiny speck on the horizon. There was no land to be seen, only water. I plunged my face back under the water and searched for the scuba divers I followed. They were nowhere to be seen, so I started the long, lonely swim back to the boat.

The only thing to do was hum a happy song into my snorkel to keep myself company and stave off the ice-cold panic I was feeling. Just gotta keep swimming. Swim. Swim. Swim. Keep swimming. Doo-doo-da-doo. Eventually, the boat got closer, and I could see my scuba diver pals passing up their gear and climbing aboard.

I finally reached the boat and realized I was the last human in this part of the Caribbean Sea, so I took a moment to hang off the dive ladder and put my face underwater. I didn't see any sharks, just a school of curious Parrot Fish inspecting the boat's hull. That's when I decided I would learn to scuba dive at our next port of call.