Shark Dive Going Home

Day five, the dives are over and it’s time to go home. There was some hope of squeezing in one last set of dives, but the visibility was terrible, no sharks care around and there was a storm a brewin’. Before we left, the captain took us on a brief visual tour of the island.
Guadalupe Island is a cycle shaped volcanic island. We parked (docked? Weighed anchor? Moored?) in the middle of the crescent. The island itself is pretty barren except for the seals that live on the beach. It’s like watching a nature show in action, lots of seals basking on the beach, and Great Whites swimming just off shore. So our captain drove the boat around the cove letting us look at seals and telling us about the history of the island and why it works so well for both sharks and seals.

So our brief tour of the island took us down the crescent of the moon to the tip, and when we broke free from the island, the waves came. I thought it was bad inside the relative protection of Guadalupe, but when we again hit the open ocean, it was really bad. I took a video so you, gentle reader, could appreciate the distinct non-gentleness of the Pacific.

Not much to report on the way back, other than it was a 23 hour trip, and we did our best to sleep through most of it. The few times we ventured from our berth, it was an exercise in balance, and trying to eat enough to feel not starving, but not so much that you felt like it was all going to come back to haunt you.

The fun came as we awoke the next day. It’s that neat sensation you get on a boat when you can’t see the shore, but you know it’s coming. Sure, we weren’t asea for 6 months hunting whales, but the feeling of “LAND HO!” was as palpable as it was healing. There’s just something to a landlubber to seeing the land getting larger and larger in your vision. At first you can barely make out the land, it’s like a dark smudge on the horizon, heck, it could almost be low lying cloud cover, then you can start to make out landmarks and you know it’s not clouds. Then with each passing minute (yes, we were absolutely staring at the horizon, I think if I’d looked any harder at it, we would have started to move the boat backwards) it gets clearer and you can start to see buildings and people. It’s here where you start to get a palpable feeling of envy for those lucky few who are walking around on the earth, not staggering, not pitching, and not feeling nauseous. It’s also about this time where you realize that once you get within the protecting of port, our rocking sensation goes away too. When you realize this, its like you’ve been given a free meal because that far off LAND is not longer the goal, but the somewhat closer SMOOTH WATER is now the goal. I mean, boats are great fun on the smooth water, but they suck on the pitchy stuff. My guess is that its like dating a crazy girl (for the boys out there, insert ‘ain’t they all’ here, for the female readers…”Hey look over there, a singing cat!”). When things are smooth its awesome, but when you get outside and the storm hits, it’s like “Whoa, what the heck is this, and you can’t eat and you feel nauseous, and you just want to lie in bed where it’s safe. Then, you get to port, and it’s great and wonderful again. I have no idea why Poseidon is the God of the sea when it’s clearly a woman in charge there.

So at long last we get to the smooth water, and in a weird sense of symmetry, there were seals swimming in the water and lounging on the buoys. And oddly, there was a boat full of Japanese tourists in little orange life vests being ferried around on some sort of harbor boat. It was such a jarring sight to see after five days on a tiny boat by a tiny island in a giant ocean that even Sander remarked on it. Not, “Daddy, why is there a boat full of smartly dressed Japanese tourists wearing orange life vests and clear rain ponchos driving around this harbor in the middle of nowhere,” more, “What are those people doing? “ (the rest was clearly implied).
Then we docked. And honestly, it was that anticlimactic. Boat pulls up, boat docks; you get off and get on a bus. No big send-off, no flowers, no long good-byes, not even an official “You survived the trip-here’s your T-Shirt moment” (in fact, there was no free t-shirt at all. What’s up with that? Where’s my “Shark Dive” swag? You get a t-shirt and a mug for successfully crossing the street these days. Doesn’t five days of Great White’s merit a t-shirt and a mug? I know, I know, the experience IS the swag. Whatever, this is America, if you’re not handing out free t’s, you’re just not in the game. It’s like spending a ton of money on a text marketing campaign to reach the kids, and then texting them in English and not using things like l8r, lol, tgfdr, and emoticons. You’re just missing something). It was so methodical it was strange. But whatever, we were now hardened veterans of the ocean, no salt in these tears.

So we got on our bus and headed north to the US of A. It was an uneventful ride, except that it was during this ride that I first realized that the “ocean motion” was staying with me. So while I may not have had a t-shirt momento, I definitely had the sea-sick as a memory. I felt like the bus was rockin’ and no one was knockn’. This “churn” would stay with me for about a week. I really made going to the bathroom an adventure, but I was able to sleep like a baby due to the gentle rocking in my head. But there was a point there where I seriously debated putting the magic patch back on.

Anyway, we make it back to the border. Remember that border where we breezed through, no line, no inspection and the guard just waved at us from his patio chair? Funny, it’s not the same leaving Mexico. Leaving Mexico you get long lines of cars, longer lines of pedestrians, and parking lot traffic conditions. Finally we arrived at the border. I’m not sure how it works on cars, but in a bus, you get off the bus, get your luggage, wait in a line, smile at the border guard, put your bag on an X-ray machine, get your bag, walk through to the exit and get back on your bus in America. It’s extremely efficient. Seriously. I know that everyone complains about the border lines, but given how many people cross the border here, I thought we made it through in record time. I’m not saying I want to do it daily or anything, but it was a non event. Mexico, then US. Ho-hum. And the US didn’t feel all that much different. In fact, at first, I thought that was the first step in something and we were still in Mexico.

Now that we were back in the states, back to the cutest girls in the world (and these were the California versions!), we reboarded our bus, and headed back to San Diego, and our familiar Holiday in Bayside Hotel. No much time to do anything but get in, order a pizza (by the way, hot pizza after 5 days in Mexico and on the ocean is about the best tasting thing in the world-we ate ourselves to sleep) and go to bed. I intended to get some homework done that night, but between the pizza stupor, the constant swaying and the general beatdown of the trip, it just didn’t happen.

One note about the homework. I promise you, I fully intended to get ALL the homework done that his teacher gave us as a condition of going on the trip. I really did. In fact, I even had it out that last night. Look, I like to think of myself as a conscientious father, and definitely believe that it’s great to learn because knowledge is power, that knowing is half the battle, and my favorite school house is schoolhouse rock, but not only did it not happen, but Sander called it on the first day of our trip. I told him on the way to the airport, “Do you have your homework?” “Yes.” “Good, because we need to get it done.” “OK. (pause) We brought the homework to do daddy, and we’re going to try to do it, but how HARD are going to try to do it?” “Oh, we’re going to do it little man.”

He was right. But listen, between the rocking boat, the sharks, the food, the sharks, the rocking boat, the seasickness, the sharks and the rocking boat, it looked like I picked the wrong week to get tough about homework.

So the finally tally looks like this. Dad v. Sunburn? Dad wins! Dad v. Son Getting Eaten by a Great White Shark? Dad wins! Dad v. Seasick? Close, but since there was no actual "chumming of the sea" I'm taking that as a victory. Dad v. Homework? Yeah, Homework kind of spanked me. But honestly, he can learn basic multiplication anytime, but seeing Great White sharks? That’s the priority right? Right? I’m not a bad dad…right? I’m not going to be one of these parents fined for their kid doing bad in school am I? Oh man, the Oprahettes are going to have a field day with me…

Shark dive dive days.

The shark dive dive days are probably best told together. There are just not enough random things for us to do on a boat, and all three days are pretty well scripted so it’s hard for even me and Sander to get into much trouble. Furthermore, if 14 hours of shark diving (yup) aren’t enough to satisfy our need for adventure, then there’s just something wrong.

Here’s out the dives work. There are two teams of four divers in the water at the same time. You’re in the cage for an hour, then out for an hour, all day, every day, including lunch. So you have the chance for 4-5 dives per day depending on if you were the first group of the day or the second. If you’re a parent with the accompanying sense of fairness like me, you realize that if you get into the first group the first day, you have two days of five dives and one of four, but if you’re in the second group, obviously, you get the smaller half of the brownie. However, by the third day, most normal people are skipping their turns, so there are plenty of dives to go around and everyone gets all the brownie they can eat. Tune in next week when we learn all about the letter “X.” In fact, only two people on the entire boat made every single dive, see if you can guess who those two were. As a hint, their names rhyme with Mason a Tander.

So here’s our typical day. Wake up around seven, eat breakfast, wander out to the back of the boat where the cages were already in the water, notice how cold it is on deck, realize how much colder it must be in the water, stare at the wet-suit (the first dive of the first day is the only time its dry-so every dive after it should read, “stare at the cold wet wet-suit”), stare at the water, stare back at the wet-suit, sigh, slowly put a hand on the wet wet-suit, sigh again, look around the boat at everyone else getting ready, look at the cold wet wet-suit, sigh, put your first leg in, pause and reflect on how wet and cold it is, sigh, put it on up the your waist. Help Sander get into his gear, which is like trying to bathe a cat. Not that Sander’s not doing his best, its just that there are sharks in the water and there are cages in the water, but he and I are on deck and I’m moving at .0001 mph (here is a perfect analogy for Einstein’s Theory of Relativity as it relates to time. Sander sees me moving at .0001 mph while I feel like we’re getting ready at fireman pace. Tune in next week when we learn all about Particle String Theory). As luck (or more accurately Luke) would have it, we were in the first group! I would have preferred to watch the first round so I could get a better lay of the land (sea?), but I think Sander’s head would have exploded if he had to wait that first hour. Life’s all about give and take right? Just to make things even more interesting, on the first day, there were sharks in the water to greet us. Leading to this conversation, both spoken and mental.

Luke: Sharks in the water guys!

Sander: DADDADDADLOOKSHARKSHURRYUPGETINTHECAGEICANTGETMYSUITONHELLLLLLLLLLPDADDADLETSGOOOOOOOODAAAAAAAADDADCOMEONNNNNNNNLOOKATTHESHARKWE’REGOINGTOMISSHIMLOOKDADCOMEON!

Me: Yeah, look at it.

Me (In my head): What the… That’s a shark. And a BIG one. There really are sharks here. Whoa, that’s big. Did it just breach the surface. That is ONE BIG SHARK!

Sander: (Looking over the edge and back at me) DAAAAAAAAAAD!

Me (Aloud): OK buddy, come on.

So let’s stop here for a second. First, I honestly did think, “Wow, there really are sharks here.” I don’t know why it didn’t click that there would actually be sharks, on this shark boat, looking for sharks, in a documented shark area, with researchers and tourists who paid a lot of money to see said sharks. I mean, I spent a lot of jack on this trip, did tons of research, saw the pictures, and read the customer reviews, talked to the owner, so there HAD to be sharks here. I guess the idea of actually seeing a great white shark is so foreign a concept that I think I figured that we would probably go out, maybe see one shark in the distance, and then go home. I mean, we’re talking about finding a great white shark in a huge ocean. For me fishing is like playing the slot machines in Vegas. I put my line in the water and hope to get lucky, but most of the time I just lose my bait. It’s all a big mystery to me. It’s not like you can sit on top of the boat and scout for them like lions on a safari. Sharks live in the ocean, which as we all know is a desert with its life underground, and a perfect disguise above. So when that first white broke the surface on our first morning, it was just…surreal.

Anyway, we get all geared up, Sander in his multi-hued scuba suit, and me in my ill-fitting neoprene armor, and head to the cage. Here’s how it works.

The two cages are attached to the boat by ropes and chains and what look like little air shocks. It’s the shocks that keep the cages stable and close to the boat, but are also what cause the cage to jump around, not enough to buck you off or anything, but enough that when a wave hits the boat, it moves the cage half-a-beat later which makes for some tricky footing. The good news is that there’s a net between the cages and the boat, and Luke’s there giving a hand, along with three other deckhands. So the footing’s tricky, but not treacherous (tricky’s bad enough when great white’s are involved, but treacherous is a wee bit worse, so it’s a good trade), and with all the hands around you have the feeling that if you did manage to take a plunge, you’d be out of the water really, really fast. My plan in case of a plunge was essentially this. Me: Do my best Yosemite Sam impression and will myself out of the water, legs spinning, arms forward, mouth agape, and shoot to the boat. I think I’d be in and out so fast I wouldn’t even get wet. Sander: Well, he’s only eight, so it wouldn’t take me long to replace him. Sure, I’d have to live in Mexico for the rest of my life, and it would be a fairly awkward call to him mom. But its not like I’d be the first cowboy to flee to Mexico. I’d just lounge on the beach and play Christopher Cross all day. That or I’d beat him into the water and lift him to one of the people on the boat, you know, six of one.

Sander and I were the last ones in our cage. This annoyed him to no end, but I wanted to watch the others get in first so I could get a feel for it, and, I wanted us near the exit and ladder in case, well, in case. I went first, sat on the bench (again and keep in mind, there are two twelve foot plus great white sharks swimming around, breaching the water and eating tuna heads while I’m sitting there like I known what I’m doing on a little bench ABOVE the cage-which means at sea-level), exposed. It was like when you’re high up doing something, rock climbing, looking over a cliff, or using pixie dust to fly to Never-Never Land, and they tell you “Don’t look down.” Well, it’s the same here as I repeatedly think to myself, “Don’t look at the huge shark that can eat you” even though I’m at eye level with it and have no bars to protect me. So I position myself at the far end of the cage, settle down, get my air-hose which is sprayed with, I think, Scope, realize I can’t maneuver with it in my mouth, spit it out, and get ready to grab Sander. Now, everyone has to wear weights to stay down, and all kid’s are extremely buoyant because they’re all torso at this stage of their lives (math, physics and biology, you should get college credit for reading this), which means, they’re all lungs. So he needs a ton of weights (hey, that almost works), and he’s really feeling it on land, or rather, a rocking boat. Anyway, Luke grabs him, hefts him over to me, where I guide him to a sitting position, put the hose in his mouth and, like a deranged dentist start asking him questions.

Only he’s taking the “definitely look at the shark” approach, and is mesmerized. I get him to look at me long enough to decide that he wants me to go in first and guide him down, as opposed to me staying up top and lowering him into the cage (this would be the pattern the entire trip). So in I drop, and it’s COLD. A wetsuit doesn’t keep you warm so much as it traps a thin layer of water against your skin that your body warms up. So the colder the water initially, the colder that shock. Also, keep in mind that none of our suits are exactly custom, so even when you warm up your suit, you have to stay pretty still or you get a nice shot of cold water running down your back. The sensation of having a shiver of cold water shoot down your spine is only heightened by the fact that you also having nervous shivers shoot down your spine because of the sharks. So I lower Sander down and it’s on.

I spend most of that first dive hovering over Sander, watching him, and making sure I’m in contact with him, because not only are the sharks big enough to swallow him, it seemed like he could, you may want to avert your eyes here, technically fit through the slits in the cage. OK, it would be nearly impossible, but not, from the looks of it, totally impossible. So I spent three days and 14 dive hour making sure I was the buffer between “nearly” and “totally.” To this day I’m not totally sure because, while I had the urge, I never asked him to test this theory (before the Opraettes start booing, I would have had him test it when the cages were on the boat. I’m not a total Goofus-and yes, Gallant wouldn’t have even been on the boat).

And now a word on the sharks. Over the three days of diving with these absolutely amazing fish (they are fish, but the word “fish” is almost demeaning. The really need their own category), I came away with one thought. They are the planets absolute alpha predator. Nothing comes close, granted my experience with predators is three movies and a house cat, but I have to tell you, they cannot be topped. Here’s why. One, they are completely silent. In one of my many “duh” moments, I realized that whenever you see a great white shark on TV (or, more famously in a movie) there’s always noise. Either music designed to amp you up about what’s about to happen, or some sort of voice over designed to amp you up about what’s about to happen. But in the ocean? Nothing. No music, no narration, no rustling of leaves, no birds alerting you, or going silent, no noise at all. Just silence, then a 14’ great white swims by. And sound isn’t the only sense that fails you in the ocean. Clearly you can’t smell them, so that’s out. Touch? Let me explain my observations. GWS’ are so hydrodynamic that they don’t really move the water. I saw this first from the surface, they can get most of their body out of the water before the surface tension breaks over them. It’s odd to see at first, its like the ocean has a zit that forms, and then suddenly bursts. In the water, it’s even eerier. Without getting too far ahead of the story, watching the sharks approach a tuna head (that’s what we used to get them close) a shark will accelerate right up to it then suddenly, within 24” turn away, and here’s the thing, the tuna head barely bobs. I mean it bobs so imperceptivity that it may have been just the tossing of the waves. A 14’, 4000 lb animal rushed within two feet of a tuna head, and, if all you were looking at was the tuna head from the surface, you would never know the shark was there. It’s the same exact thing when they swim by. They came within those same two feet of us (once a fin even entered the cage) and you could…not…feel…a…thing. I promise you, if a bear rushed within two feet of you, you would smell it, hear it and feel it. Yes, all of that may do you no good, but you would know what hit you. A great white shark? Nope, all over but the shout. They’re like ghosts. It’s so very hard to accurately describe it, but they just show up. You would be watching one massive GWS swim around, and all of the sudden, out of the corner of your eye, less than two feet away, another would swim by, almost taunting you. I can’t tell you the number of times I watched the people in the other cage completely miss a GWS swimming right behind them (four people and eight eyes) because they were looking the wrong way. It was completely unnerving.

All you had was sight, and they’re very well camouflaged too. The pros on the boat think that the shark has a sense of how murky the water is, and hunts just outside this visual range, and then makes its move. After watching enough sharks in enough varied visibility, they noticed that on high visibility days the sharks stay much farther away from the bait, and on low visibility days they come much closer. Also, watching the sharks “hunt” it was amazing to see them use whatever cover they could when they decide to make their move. Here’s how it worked on our trip. The shark would take many passes at the tuna, circling wide, circling near, drop way down out of sight, slowly come back up, drop way down again, circle low, then point up and accelerate (and by “accelerate” I mean move from 0-60 in two flashes of its tail), here it would charge up exposed, or more often, use the boat and then the underside of the cages as cover and either nail the tuna or turn away at the last second. But to watch that huge mouth push forward, and see all the little nibbly fish blink it the weird game of chicken they play with the shark, and see it gulp, gulp and then head low into the unseen depths was extremely impressive. But here’s what really got to me. There is no way anyone at the surface, I’m looking at you surfers, would ever feel any of the 5-10 approaches the shark took before it made its move. My personal bet is that for every attack, there were several feints and inquiries made by the shark that were completely unnoticed. Again, imagine if the possibility existed that you could go camping, be sitting by the fire, roasting marshmallows, and a grizzly bear could come within a few feet of you, repeatedly, and you wouldn’t notice it…at all. Well, that’s what its like when there’s a great white shark in the waters. Awesome.

One more thing on the ghostly nature of the sharks. We would be watching the shark swim right towards us, go under the cage (which was solid) and move to the other side expecting to see it emerge from under the cage, but it would be…gone. The cage was maybe 5’ wide, the shark was about 14’, but it was like a magic trick where the magician puts a long cane in his magic top-hat. They just didn’t show up on the other side. Weird.

Watching them patrol the waters Sander and I made a few observations of our own. We think the sharks communicate. When they’re in the water, its just too choreographed. One shark circles just below the bait, moves off, then the other makes it move. It’s like the first is a decoy. We saw this in the cage. One shark would swim in a wide arc off to the side of the cage, and then, from behind, the other would swim by from behind. Also, never, ever, did the two sharks make a move at the bait at the same time. Granted we only had three days of observations, but we found it interesting. So the question was, “What were you doing taking an eight year old shark diving?” No, not that one, the question was “How were they communicating?” No one has ever shown that sharks communicate beyond rudimentary body language, so what gives? A little anatomy first. Sharks have something called the “Ampullae of Lorenzini” which allows them to detect extremely small electrical impulses (according to Wikipedia, “Sharks may be more sensitive to electric fields than any other animal, with a threshold of sensitivity as low as 5 nV/cm” I won’t demean your intelligence by telling you what that means). To us it really looks like the sharks are communicating, and just because we may not be able to understand what form of communication they’re using it doesn’t meant they’re not communicating. I mean, who can understand women? I know when one is trying to say something important, what with all the hand movements, big words and pacing, but, honestly, I have no idea what they’re saying most of the time-sooooo ipso facto, women are like sharks. Glad that’s been settled. Where was I? Oh, right, Ampullae of Lorenzini and communication. We believe that the sharks are using some form of low-level electrical pulses to interact. They have this amazing receptive sense; it makes sense to us that they’re using it not only to find prey, but also to interact. It would be like a species having a great sense of hearing, but no means of vocalization. Seems like the best way to maximize this extra sense, and surely over the millions of years they’ve been alive they’ve figured it out.

So the rest of the trip was diving, diving and more diving. Every trip down was an adventure. It never got old. Sure, pulling on the cold wet suit was a drag, and yes, the motivation to just lay down on the upper deck and enjoy the cool sunny days was there, especially given that the constant rocking of the boat put Sander and I in a permanent state of low-grade sea-sickness, and the shock of the cold water became more intimidating than the sharks, but once you entered the water and started looking for the sharks, that became everything. And each time you saw the sharks, it was just as amazing as the first time. 14 dives, and never once did we think, “Oh hum, another day, another shark.”

A couple of side notes. One day a seal showed up to check us out. If ever I was torn in my life between the good angel and the bad one, this was it. At first you’re mentally yelling, “GO AWAY!!! WE’RE TRYING TO ATTRACT GREAT WHITE SHARKS HERE! ARE YOU NUTS?” And the cute little seal’s just floating there looking all cute like, then swimming up and checking us out, then swimming off a little, then coming back. Seals are definitely cute. But then you start thinking, and I’m sorry to admit it, “Wow, it would be kind of cool to be down here when a shark attacked a seal.” I know, I know, but, seriously, how cool would that be? You couldn’t top that right? Being below surface, six feet from a great white attacking a seal. But I started to feel bad, especially because every now and then, the seal would stop, quickly look around and swim off.

Then, just to show me what’s what, at one point the seal swam away. Five minutes later a GWS swam by, and six feet later was our friendly neighborhood seal swimming directly behind it. Just cruising along behind a 14’ GWS like a baby duck follows its mommy. I’m 90% certain the shark was thinking, “Really, now? You have to swim behind me now? I’m working here, trying to look all ferocious for the humans, and you have to do this. I hate you.” But, if you think about it, the safest place to be when there are GWS’ around (if you don’t have a cage handy) is behind the teeth.

Second, the scariest moment for me was when I first saw the pictures of the sharks that I took underwater. Let me explain. Sharks have really dark eyes, so dark that it looks like one giant pupil, kind of like hamsters. The whole time we were in the cages looking at the GWS’, I had the feeling that the tuna was not the real reason they were there. The way they circled the cages, swam at the cages, bit the cages (yup, I have the pictures), I had the feeling that they wanted in. Like they were swimming in circles using every bit of their brains trying to figure out how to get to the good stuff. I had this recurring thought; if you recall from our trip to Belize, we went swimming with nurse sharks in Shark Ray Alley (I’ll wait while you go get that entry). The way the guide enticed the sharks was to put squid in a pvc pipe with holes in it so that the sharks would scamper around and eventually one would just suck real hard and get all the squid. Well it hit me maybe we were the squid in the pipe! Well that completely weirded me out, but I told myself that I was way off base and that the sharks weren’t anymore interested in us than the bottom of the boat. But when I looked at the pictures? It was like a horror movie. The flash from camera illuminated the eye so you could the actual pupil. And here’s the thing. It was looking right…at…me! I’m telling you this right now; it wasn’t looking at me saying “Cheese!” It was trying to figure out how to eat the big moving creature with the bright flashy thing. I’m not the most macho of men, but that completely creeped me out. That and when I was lying in bed each night, I knew that there were great white sharks swimming around below me (they don’t sleep, and because of that, I barely did).

Yes the water was awesome. The time between the dives? Not so much. You’re just always moving. Up and down, up and down, up and down. When you ate, you didn’t really have to swallow, you could just wait for an up pitch to move your stomach to where your mouth was three seconds earlier, and if it weren’t for the magic ear patches, in three more seconds, what was in my stomach would be where my mouth was. It just beat us up. Walking was and adventure, and watching poor Sander try to navigate the pitching boat was both funny and sad. Little hands out stretched looking for purchase, having to stop every few steps and brace himself and find his balance. Just brutal. But he never complained, never said he didn’t want to walk somewhere, he just seemed to get that that’s the way it was. Later, back in San Diego he let me know that he wasn’t a huge fan of the rocking boat, but asea, you would have thought he was Popeye (except his slogan would be, “I’m strong to the tips because I eats me chicken strips, I’m Sander the Saaaaaailormaaaaan). We also learned that peeing on a rocking boat is a special talent, and, (here’s where I cross a definite line) he didn’t “drop any ballast” during the entire five day trip, but when we got back to our hotel in San Diego, it was “laaaaaand ho!” And, I’ll tell you this for nothing, the sharks became the second scariest things I encountered on the trip.

So we spent our days diving and stumbling, and our nights laying in our little cabins laughing and talking about that day, and what the next day held. OK, that’s the romanticized version. We also spent out time laying in bed going, “Ooooooooh, when’s the boat going to be still.” We played games for a little bit in bed, but mostly we were too sick to do anything and we racked out early. But it was amazing.

The Boat

So we make our way down the coast and finally pull up to the boat. Only we weren’t allowed to get out until the Customs Agent said it was OK. This is where I should have realized that Mexico doesn’t care who enters the country, but they really care who leaves. Anyway, since we were on the bus for an hour or so looking at our boat, I’ll describe it. Boats are described in a way that makes them sound big until you see them. A 110’ boat sounds like a battleship, but when you see it, you think, “Ummmmmm, that boats going to rock a lot.” The MV Islander is a fairly Spartan looking boat. No sleek lines, no cool tinted windows and no helipad. It’s a work vessel, and it’s our home for the next five days. The shark cages, there are two of them, are in the back of the boat, with the galley (or vomit reload center) on the main deck, and living quarters below, with the crews cabin and Bridge on the third level.

Once we get the OK, we depart the bus, embark the MV Islander and begin our inspection. We start with the living quarters. There’s AC, but it’s plugged into the only plug, so in order to use anything else, you have to unplug it first. But there are four bunks, and the emergency exit is in our room. I like being right next to the emergency exit, it’s like a teddy bear for adults. The view you ask? None. No windows not even a porthole. What was Luke alluding to when he said it was where he’d want to be? I just assumed it was because it had the coolest view. Guess not. It’s right below the galley, which makes it noisy. But we settle in, which means unzip our duffle and lay on the beds. Only Sander is so excited that he wants to take a tour of the boat.

So we head up the stairs and walk around the boat. Where we find our next security blanket. The inflatable lifeboats “they inflate the second they hit the water,” says Luke (which makes me wonder what happens when it rains) are Elliot brand boats (spelled wrong, but I figure it gives us “dibs” if there’s a need to fill them with people. You know if something happens in Great White Shark infested waters…). This is where I figure the family lineage splits between the One T and Two T Elliott’s. Apparently that extra T was lost as sea by the seafaring Elliot’s. Because the when it comes to the ocean, the Two T Elliott’s wouldn’t focus so much on the life raft, as inventing a better sea-sick bag.

As we round the stern, we come across the cages. I give them a hefty look over with my discerning eye, rattle the cage a little and feel exactly like I feel when I’m at a car lot and the salesman says, “So, want to look under the hood?” “Sure,” I say, and then proceed to stare at the engine, thinking, “Yup, that’s an engine all right,” but mostly do my best impression of an impressed nod while looking for something obvious to comment on. Like if it says, “Cast Aluminum block” I’ll say, “Wow, a cast aluminum block, sweet” and then try to get away from the engine as fast as I can. Same with the cages. The only way I’d be able to comment on the structural integrity of the cage is if it had bubblegum holding the bars to the frame, and even then, I’d probably say something dumb like, “Hey, is that Hubba Bubba bubblegum holding the bars to the frame? Well, that’s a pretty strong gum, sweet.” But I do notice that on top of the frame there’s a big yellow sign that says, “Swimming with sharks is not advised. Remain in your cage at all times.” Then it hits me, why are all warning signs so polite? I mean, my mother raised me and I’ve made it to the ripe old age of 38 and she was never, ever that polite when it came to my safety. If she wrote the sign for the cage it would say something like, “If I catch you swimming outside this cage, I will beat you into chum for the next divers. You may as well live out there with the sharks because I WILL make you cry in front of all the other divers. Do you hear me?” And, lo, I would not swim outside the cage. But “Swimming with sharks is not ‘advised.’” “Advised?” Who listens to advice? You can “advise” me not to stay out late on Sunday night because I have to go to work the next day, but if I do, no ones going to eat me. You can “advise” my buddy Erik not to bet against me in anything, but when he does, I don’t go into a feeding frenzy and devour him (just his money). I just think all these warning signs sound like the mom with the spoiled child at the supermarket. “Johnny, Mommy would like it if you didn’t throw grapes at the other shoppers.” Maybe Johnny needs my Mom to say, “JOHN! If you don’t put that GRAPE down this second you WILL regret it. Do you UNDERSTAND me?” and then grab his arm so hard it makes his eyes water. Just notice this next time you read any kind of warning label, they don’t really sound like warnings.

Finally, we’ve done the tour (there’s only so much you can tour on a fishing boat) and we’re looking around the dock area and I notice the Ensenada port sign. For whatever reason, Ensenada is the land where whales swim under mushroom clouds. I can’t read Spanish, so I’m assuming the sign says, “In the event of global thermal nuclear war, please find a friendly whale who will take you to safety beneath the ocean’s surface.”

Anyway, the boat is declared ship-shape and its time to depart. We settle into the galley for our briefing and again my ears perk up on the talk of the sea voyage. Luke says there’s a storm coming, but that it shouldn’t hit until we’re there, and in any case, the trip over shouldn’t be “that bad.” Now, anytime anyone, ever, says something won’t be “that bad” its going to be bad. For example, if your doctor says, “X thing I’m doing to you won’t hurt ‘that bad,’” brace yourself. It’s the ramification of over accustomization. The more you do something, or see it done, the easier you think it is. A world-class gymnast says, “Just do a double reverse pike with a Sukahara twist,” I hear, “Don’t try this, you’re going to break your neck.” When an experienced seaman says a trip “may be a little bumpy, but it won’t be that bad.” The room envisions a glass like surface with a couple of little bumps (wheeeeee!), when in reality it’s going to be like the final voyage of the Andrea Gail. It’s just the way things are, especially when you’re traveling and talking to locals. So I start planning our night, make sure our magic ear stickies are stuck, and try to feed Sander as soon as possible before the rockin’ starts knockin’.

So we eat dinner and retire to our cave. Then we break free from the bay and the waves start coming in, well, waves. And this tiny ship was tossed. And we are getting tossed in the bow, and cookies are on the verge of getting tossed. Sander is the color of pea soup, which isn’t helping my personal situation any one bit. It’s time for drastic action. I track down Luke and ask if there’s another bunk at the back. He says there should be, he’ll check. So in the meantime, I take Sander above deck to the mommy arms section. We’re sitting there and the boy’s really starting to feel it. I mean, he’s REALLY feeling it. See, the magic stickies work, but in a weird way. I’m not sure what’s really going on, but I’ll tell you how it seems. My guess is that for some reason the “throw-up, NOW” pathway from stomach to brain runs behind both ears. Because with the stickies you feel the ocean move, you feel like you should be sick, like you could nauseous but your not. It’s like your stomach is franticly sending out, “Throw up NOW! NOW YOU FOOL!” but the stickie is blocking the message like a school traffic officer. So you’re stomach feels sick but your brain doesn’t. It’s a strange feeling, but thankfully, not as strange as throwing up for five straight days. So we’re sitting at the stern, and Sander says, “Dad, I really want to go to our room.” So I find Luke again, and he’s found us a room. It’s the one the researcher is using, and he’s a very nice man who agrees to move. So we stagger over to our new quarters and find a bunk with three beds (I take the top one, Sander the middle) and a sink. It looks like the prison cell from Shawshank Redemption. Now, I’m by no means a giant of a man but my toes can touch the ceiling and our duffel takes up all the room on the floor. Oh, and once again, no windows. They must think because we’re small we’re gnomes or something. Exactly two cabins on the whole boat lack windows, and we (and I suppose the researcher) have now bunked in both of them. Oh well.

So we settle into bed, thankful for the stickies, eat some peanut M&M’s and go to sleep tired, sick and genuinely excited about the next morning.

Next up…Sharks! Duh.

Shark Dive Day Dos

Day Two starts promptly at 4.30 A.M. HOORAY!!! Here’s how my morning went down.

Sander didn’t go to sleep until 11.30 P.M. because he was all hopped up on Shark Dive anticipation (if I ever create an energy drink to compete with Red Bull, or Quintouple Espresso coffee, I’m going to call it “Sander Shark Dive Anticipation” because nothing’s as amped up as an eight-year old like thinking about going shark diving), but oddly at 4.30 in the morning, all that anticipation was smothered in “Daddy, I just want to sleeeeeeeeeep” anti-anticipation. So my morning was comprised of stumbling around trying to pack up all our stuff, worried that the breakfast place was closed so Sander wouldn’t have anything to eat before our three hour bus ride to Ensenada, Mexico (did I forget to mention that our journey to the high seas begins with a three hour bus ride, maybe I forgot to mention it when I forgot to mention that the seats on said bus reclined a luxurious 0˚, good times), deciding to skip the shower (that’s why I always bring my trusty hat), and putting on our magic ear tabs. A quick note about the magic ear tabs (the seasick prevention stickies you put behind your ear), one of the cool side effects is blurry vision. The neat thing here is that I don’t see so good sans magic ear patches, and even the slightest notion that something may affect my vision is more than enough to get a negative placebo affect going. So I put on my patch and spent the next seven hours thinking, “Is my vision blurry because I can’t see well anyway, or is the magic ear patch giving me the business?” So I know that you at home are thinking, “If you can’t tell either way why does it matter?”Well, if I can’t see because of the magic ear patches then I can blame them. If I can’t see because I can’t see, I have no remedy. The good news is that at some point I’ll forget about the whole thing and revert back to my daily, “Hey, everything’s blurry routine.” It’s one of the perc’s of not being overly bright. Anyway, we’re packed and tabbed up, and stumble out to the bus.

As we near the bus, Sander’s want of sleep is crushed under the power of what’s going on. Sander Shark Dive Anticipation won the battle for Sander’s energy and never looks back. I meant he’s running now and talking 100 miles a minute, and I’m loving it. There’s nothing on this earth like the excitement of a child, especially when its your child, and especially especially when its something your doing together. As we head for the bus, he’s saying things like, “sowhere’sthebusdoyouthinkitsherewhatifitsnothowfartotheboatwillweseelotsofsharksilikesharksisthatthebusthebusisthatit.” So we head for the pick-up spot and there’s exactly one very large bus out front. One. But apparently Smart Brain was still fast asleep, and Dumb Brain in a moment of triumph said, “Ho, ho, now while that infernal Smart Brain is resting in his smug slumber, I will strike!” So I walk up the bus and say to the first man I see, “Shark dive?” And the nice man (who later turns out to be the chef) says, “Yes.” So I’m getting ready to load the bags below the bus, when, mid swing, the driver comes out and says, “Enistasa?” Now Dumb Brain goes into battle mode, and “Whoa,” thinks I, that doesn’t sound like “Shark dive.” So I say, “Shark dive?” “Enistasa?” “No, Shark Dive.” “Enistasa.” Now, we’re doing our best Abbott and Costello routine and I’m just looking at him and he’s looking at me. I know he’s not saying “Shark Dive” or “yes,” and I’m thinking, “No way am I getting on this bus, unless I’m sure its for the shark dive,” but really, what else can this bus be here for? The guy is clearly Mexican and has a thick Mexican accent, but that’s not dawning on me while dumb brain has the helm. Now, the chef and some other folks are staring at me smiling, and I’m thinking, “Why are these guys staring at me?” and I start thinking, “Maybe they didn’t understand me.” Or, “What if they don’t know what’s going on?” And, “Why are they staring at me, and what in the world is this guy saying to me? What does ‘Enistasa’ even mean?” And for some reason, I start to get testy. “Is this the SHARK DIVE?” “Enistasa.” “Look, I’m not getting on the bus unless this is the shark dive.” You have to understand the stupidity of this conversation, It’s 5.00 A.M, I was told to meet a bus out front of this specific hotel, there’s exactly one vehicle in eyesight, and it’s a very large bus. It’s not like I walked out of Waldorff Astoria and was told to get a very specific yellow cab at 5.00 P.M. This IS the bus. About now, Smart Brain wakes up, rubs his eyes, figures out what’s going on and sighs, “Its OK boys, I’ll figure it out.” “Excuse me,” says my voice to a newly arrived nice man “Is this bus part of the Shark Diver shark dive?” “Yup.” And just then the driver, makes another move for my bag and says “Enistasa?” “THERE!” yells Dumb Brain, “What do you make of THAT smarty pants brain?” Smart brain sighs again, “Enistasa, friend, is Ensenada.” “Oooooooh,” says dumb brain, “I think I’ll have a muffin.”

The newly arrived nice man is our guide, an Australian named Luke (Mexico, an Australian, and Great White Sharks. All we need now is to be chased by an inept sheriff for a crime we didn’t commit and we’d have the next summer blockbuster), and settle into our bus seats for the long ride to Ensenada. Sander dives into his nutritious breakfast of chocolate milk and I start wondering how great an idea it is to leave the USA for a Shark Dive in Mexican waters. But these guys are pro’s, I tell myself, this is what they do. Then Luke sidles up and says, “I think we may have a problem.” And discloses that Sander, while a strapping young man, is not anything close to the 5’3” that he’s listed on their chart, and thus they don’t have the right sized wetsuit. I look at the chart and it says, “Sander Elliott, Age 8, Height 5’3” weight, 50lbs.” And here I get worried. Forget that the same chart list’s me as “5’7”,” meaning that they think I only have 4” on my eight-year old, but how many 5’3” eight-year olds are there that you haven’t seen doing guest spots on David Letterman? More importantly, how many 5’3” people weigh only 50 pounds? You’ve definitely seen that kid on Letterman right? I mean, who looked over the sheet? And please, please tell me it’s not the same person in charge of safety checks. Anyway, we settle on the idea that whoever took down the information wrote down what I said in inches, 53, as 5’3”. Great. We’ve just discovered that the horses are out of the barn because someone left the door open. Then Luke says, “Do you think he could fit into that wetsuit?” Looooooong pause here. Is my professional guide really asking if my 4’4” 50 pound child can fit into a wetsuit made for someone 5’3”? As I’m sitting there staring at the man, we have some kind of psychic moment and he says, “Probably not.” Another looooooong pause. I’m thinking that there are dive shops in Mexico that have an appropriately sized wetsuit. “I’ll get another wetsuit from a local dive shop brought to the boat.” “Good idea,” says I. It was like I used the Jedi Mind Trick on him. It felt awesome! I wanted to grab a lightsaber and take on Vader or something. Sander, by the way, has picked up on the whole conversation and is internally freaking out that his trip may not happen, but hiding it extremely well. “What’s he talking about,” he says in his best steady voice. “They don’t have a wetsuit for you,” says Jedi Dad. “But we gave him my measurements.” “Yup.” “What happened, can I still go without one?” “No buddy, its way to cold, but they’re going to get one that fits you, don’t worry.” Here, I’m doing that “hope/lying” dance that every parent knows. In my mind, there’s no way he’s going without a wetsuit, but I also know that we’re not going down without a fight. About 10 minutes later, our guide comes up and says he’s got it all worked out. My Jedi Powers are growing strong.

Now we hit the border. It takes exactly 16 seconds to enter Mexico. No one checks our bags, looks at our passports or asks us any questions. A uniformed guy sitting on a chair looks at the bus. I guess he’s comfortable that it is, indeed, a bus, and he waves us through.

Next it’s time for cabin assignments. Luke recommends the forward bunks for Sander and I. Say’s its where he’d like to be if he were eight, and it’s the biggest room. For you non-boater types, the front, or “bow” or “vomit maker” is the bumpiest part of the boat, and the back of the boat, or “stern” or “mommy arms” is the most stable part. So, being that in some long ago era I must have broken the heart of some impressionable sea nymph who now wreaks her vengeance on my stomach every time I dare set sail on the ocean I’m faced with a conundrum. I want to rest in the mommy arms section of the boat, but the front is larger, and has a better view (allegedly). Furthermore, our guide is looking at me like not only would I be the world’s largest sissy if I didn’t take the front, I’d also be a terrible daddy for denying Sander this wonderful opportunity. So I, being both a father and a guy, nod “Yes” in such a way that any other answer would obviously be patently ridiculous. Hooray for boats!

As we go through Tijuana, I’m struck by how poor it is. I don’t really know what I was expecting as I’ve never been to Mexico, but this town is poor. Admittedly my entire body of knowledge regarding Tijuana comes from an 80’s movie called “Losin’ it” starring Tom Cruise, Cougar from “Top Gun” and the little angry guy form “Breaking Away” (yes, yes, how can any movie starring Tom Cruise refer to any other character as “the little guy?”). See, back when cable had the rights to, like, six movies, they ran them in constant rotation as I laid on the couch and watched them until they burned themselves into my brain. The upshot is that 20 years later, I’m able to draw on them to guide me in my real life. But even I assumed that Tijuana changed since Tom and the gang showed up in 1983, but it hadn’t. I know this sounds ignorant, but I always assumed that Mexico was poor, but just by being a neighbor of the US; it had to be OK, especially at the border. Nope. We drove through parts of town that were barely better than the poorer parts of Belize, except there was infrastructure, lawyer billboards, and electricity. But there were many houses without windows, stuff piled up everywhere, and a general state of disrepair. Also, it’s striking and obvious, but it’s especially odd to see the border fence from the Mexico side. Its kind of interesting to look at, its essentially a series of long concrete poles driven into the ground, with enough space to see through, in fact its almost invisible when your driving, but to small to fit through. I got confused and turned around, so it took me a while to figure out what I was looking at, but when I did, it just hit me in some odd way. This line is all that separates the impoverished citizens of Tijuana from the US. I know the lines not arbitrary as people fought and died for every inch of our border, but if that line were 10 miles to the south, Tijuana would be an entirely different place. I mean, entirely. It must be hard to be on the Mexico side and look through those gaps. Or maybe not, what do I know?

The rest of the drive to Ensenada was quiet and odd. It’s a coastal drive with lots of abandoned looking high-rises promising vacation resort experiences that I couldn’t imagine ever happening. There were not gradients. No easing into poverty or luxury. Here there were huge, expensive high-rises right next to dilapidated restaurants with no windows and grocery stores with no AC. Also, there was a FOX lot where Pirates of the Caribbean and other movies where filmed. I spent the rest of the time wondering where Johnny Depp stayed when he was in town. Driving said Fox lot, in the Middle of Nowhere, Mexico, you could see the Black Pearl and an F-16. Only in Americ-ummm, Mexico, I guess.

Next, the boat…

Sharks! Day Uno.

So the big day arrives for my and Sander’s biggest adventure yet. We’re going to go cage diving with Great White Sharks (or the latin, Sharkus Gigantus). Not only does this involve the afore mentioned Great White Sharks, but Mexico. And nothing says safety like “Mexico.”

And that’s the thing about this particular trip. Safety. I’ve reviewed and researched, and this seems safe. But that doesn’t really matter, as this trip absolutely fails the “Oprah Test.” Meaning, no matter what I do or say or research, if anything goes wrong there’s no way to get my side of the story across on Oprah without getting soundly booed by all the Opraettes in the audience. An eight year old boy, Great White Sharks, and Mexico. No way. I’d be swarmed and killed like, well, like Great Whites on a feeding frenzy. So I’m actually nervous. I try to live my life by the Oprah Test rule, and I’m definitely in violation here.

But first a little history. We were watching TV during Shark Week on the Discovery Channel (here’s where the Oprah crowd starts fidgeting – how many great ideas start with two guys watching Shark Week?), and they kept showing people in cages looking at the sharks. Well before the smart part of my brain knew what happened (it was distracted learning about how sharks don’t get cancer) the 18 year-old part of my brain announced, “Hey Sander, we should do that!” Since he’s only eight, his little brain had no chance and said, “YES!” Well, just then the smart part of my brain spit out its popcorn and punched the 18 year-old part of my brain in the nose and took over. “Hmmmm,” says smart-brain, there’s no way you can do this without a SCUBA license, let’s just look it up and tell Sander that, “It sure would be fun, but no SCUBA license, no shark dive.” That should buy a few years. And the first few internet searches come up with just that fact. So I say, “Hey buddy, looks like a no go…” I write “…” because for some reason, out of nowhere I say, “But lets see if they have a way of diving with a SNUBA Hose (this is like the old school method of just pumping air from the surface through a hose).” Why, why did I say this? I was in the clear. I blame smart-brain. Stupid smart-brain, always showing off. And lo and behold, there is just such a guide service available. As it comes up I realize that I have only one hope, that, at eight, he’s too young. I mean, if you were a guide operator you’d be crazy to let an eight year old on a five-day shark diving trip right? And lo and behold (lo and behold, another lo and behold reference) you have to be 12 to even look at sharks from the deck. Hah, eat that smart-brain! “Sorry buddy, you’re four years to young to even be on the boat, and you have to be 16 to dive. We tried, and we got real close. How about some ice-cream?” Then he looks at me and says, “You could call and ask right? You always say, ‘It never hurts to ask’ right?”

Well, unless it involves 14’ Great White Sharks thinks I. But he’s got me. I have to ask, but there’s no way they’ll say yes. I mean, if you were a dive operator, you’d be crazy to let an eight year old on a five-day shark diving trip, right? So I call and purposefully make the classic negotiating mistake of leaving the actual message of what I want. This almost guarantees failure. It gives whoever you’re talking to time to craft all kinds of counter arguments without the benefit of your input. It’s negotiating suicide. So the next day Sander and I are at the movies when the Charter Owner calls. Says that he’s been thinking about it, Sander sounds like a really unique little boy, and that at his age his parents were taking him on all kinds of adventures and that this could be a life changing moment for the boy, so sure, he can come, but he needs to talk to me first. I’m so stunned here, that before smart-brain can ruin things, I blurt out, “Sander, we can GO!”

And with that, everything’s in motion for us to head to San Diego to go shark diving. We arrived in San Diego and set off for our Hotel Holiday Inn Bayside. This is important. Sander and I get into a minor debate about whether we should take a cab (his vote) or the free shuttle (my vote). After waiting for a while at the bus stop, and starting to lose the debate, I decide to call the hotel and make sure the shuttle is coming. “Yes,” says the nice lady on the phone, a shuttle should be there in 15 minutes. Then, two minutes later, a Holiday Inn on the Bay shuttle shows up. “Hmm,” I think, “that was fast,” and we hop on and head to the hotel. And it was awesome, right on the main marina area, across the street the USS Midway Aircraft Carrier, there’s a mini-golf course on site, and we talk about hurrying up and checking in and hitting it. At check-in the niceish lady behind the desk says that she doesn’t have my reservation. Well, I’m ready for that, and pull out my confirmation number. She carefully looks it over, sighs, and says, “Oh, I see, your reservation is for ‘Holiday in Bayside,’” here, I start looking around, her ID tag says “Holiday Inn,” there’s lots of green around, I’ve got to be in a Holiday Inn. She continues, “This is ‘Holiday in By the Bay.” Loooooong pause, as I try to figure out what she just said. I think I even said, “Huh?” (I’m not always the most eloquent). “We get this a lot,” she continues, “Get what a lot,” I think. “You want to go to the Holiday Inn Bayside,” this is Holiday Inn By the Bay.” “What? That doesn’t make any sense,” I think, “Why would you have two hotels within a few miles of each other, one called ‘Holiday Inn By the Bay,’ and the other called ‘Holiday Inn Bayside?’” And if you “get this all the time” why not do something to make it clearer. I’m thinking maybe an announcement when you get on the bus, a sign somewhere, or at least a way of getting between the two. Instead, I get, “you’ll have to take a cab to Holiday Inn Bayside. Next.” So a $20 cab ride later, I’m at my destination. And by “cab ride” I mean a 15 minute ride that consisted of my cabbie telling me repeatedly that this “happens all the time.” Now you would think that after the first time he mentioned this that the issue would be resolved. Nope. I won’t bore you with the banality of the longest 15 minutes of my life, but it was basically this.

Cabbie: Oh, you wanted to go to the Holiday Inn Bayside? Yeah, that happens all the time (told you). See, all the hotels want some part of the bay in their name.
Me: Yeah, that makes sense, thanks.

Rinse, lather, repeat.

Seriously, I lived, and relived this conversation for a solid 15 minutes. How many different ways can I act interested in various iterations of “Lots of people get confused because of all the ‘Bay’ names in San Diego”? The first time I felt vindicated, the 8th time, I felt like I wanted to jump out of the moving cab. It was like a scene from Faust. “Ohhhh, you like chocolate-chip cookies do you?” says Satan, “Then HERE, spend eternity eating your way out of a giant vat of chocolate-chip cookie dough! Bwah-ha-ha!” I wanted to not feel like an idiot, but by the end of the ride I felt like I was being force-fed vindication through a straw and it was coming out my nose.

Eventually, we arrived at our hotel the Holiday Inn BAYside. Checked in, and then bee-lined it to the drug store to get our handy-dandy ear patches. I’ve never used these before, but since I get seasick in a mud-puddle and was facing five days on a boat, I felt it made just enough sense to experiment with them. But to be on the safe side, I also bought every gimmicky seasick item I could buy; wristbands, powders, lotions, whatever. If there was a gypsy camped outside offering to rub “magic sea dust” in my hair, I would have happily paid her. Honestly, I was more afraid of spending three days hunched over the side of the boat donating my insides to the local fish population, than I was of donating my whole body to the local Great White Shark population.

So we returned to the hotel magic ear stickies in hand and stopped by the gift shop where I bought every kind of portable junk food I could find. Here’s the tally, two pounds of peanut M&M’s, 4 King Sized Snickers bars, 4 of those little bags of Doritos, two bottles of chocolate milk and a large bag of peanuts (the latter two destined to for tomorrow’s breakfast). They say an army travels on its stomach, well, a nervous daddy terrified of being seasick for five straight days travels on junk food.

And with that, it was bed time.

Day 6. Going home.

So our little adventure comes to an end. So we pack up, say goodbye to our little resort and head to the cab. In true Belizian fashion, we have to wait so the cabbie can troll the streets and pick up a few more passengers. Eventually, we all load up into the van and head towards town. All-in-all the resort was good to us. The people were nice, the food was great, we met some nice tourists, and swam in the pool everyday. But mostly I remember lying in bed at night and laughing. It’s a great time when a little boy becomes genuinely funny on his own. Some of the things he said had me laughing so hard my stomach hurt. We also started doing yoga at night (“relaxing yoga”) and yoga in the morning (“wake-up yoga”). He made up wake-up yoga and it works (OK, truth be told, I was making up relaxing yoga too. But it seemed to work. Maybe we’ll hit the late-night infomercial circuit.). Anyway, for all that we saw and did in Placencia, I think what I’ll remember most is talking. Talking on the way into town, talking in our beds at night, talking over breakfast, just conversing. He’s just so enjoyable to talk with. It’s not one-way either, with me dispensing fatherly advice (mostly stuff I pulled off of fortune cookies. Looking back, “You will meet a tall stranger” was a perplexing answer to “Daddy, why do countries go to war?”), but back and forth conversations, with serious moments, clever moments, creative moments, and funny moments. It makes me smile.

Anyway, we check-in for our flight, that’s Sander holding the boarding ticket (yup), board and head for Belize City. Again, I love Third-World Travel. No boarding passes, no identification checks, no security. You show up, pay your money, say “hi” to the lady at the desk and get on the plane for the flight to Belize City. Man was that was a hot flight. I guess the plane is designed to pull air in from the outside, but it doesn’t really fly high enough to get to the cool air. So you wind up sitting in a big cigar tube packed with passengers and cooking in hot, humid, choppy air. Finally, we make it to the big airport…and wait…and wait. I guess there were storms in Chicago or something so our flight was delayed six short hours. It was a real Third World Airport experience too. Hot, muggy, and hot and muggy. I kept waiting for a heavy set guy in a sweat stained white suit and hat to come in asking if we’ve seen Indiana Jones. Eventually, after we talked about everything we could think of, played “eye spy,” and walked around and looked all through both shops, I punted and gave Sander his iPod Touch so he could watch air combat shows.




At long last we board our plane, and settle into our chairs for the long flight to Dallas (that’s Sander, full of vim and vigor-one of many, “Seriously, now you’re taking a picture?” moments on the trip), when the pilot comes on and says, “Due to the fuel shortage Belize is experiencing, we only have enough fuel to get to Cozumel, Mexico. We’ll get more fuel there, and head to Dallas.”

And with that, we left Belize.