Funny Shark Story or A Near Miss?
This event happened many years ago, back in the early 1990s, even before I was a scuba diver, and I'm finally feeling secure enough to tell you my Darwin tale.
It was my first trip to Nassau in the Bahamas. We arrived late in the evening and stayed in a hotel on the beach, down from the new Atlantis Hotel.
The "Cove" at the Atlantis Hotel
After dumping our bags in our rooms, we took a midnight walk up the beach to Atlantis.
There at Atlantis, we found a HUGE swimming pool called the "Cove." The pool was empty, but it sure looked cool and inviting in the heat of the evening. We walked around the pool, passing by chairs and tables right at the water's edge. I could imagine tourists sitting there in the heat of day, drinking cold beer and dangling their feet in the swimming pool....
We didn't see any signs telling us that the pool was closed at that hour, but we kept arguing about whether or not to jump in for a midnight swimming session.
Eventually we found a glass tunnel under the "swiming pool," and went down to take a look. To our surprise......
Dozens and dozens of dark figures swam overhead. It wasn't a swimming pool. It was a shark lagoon! 10-foot hammerheads! 6-foot reef sharks! Oh, my!
On that same trip, we did a lot of snorkeling off the beach, and found ourselves completely surrounded in huge schools of small fish. They surrounded us and followed us every where we went. One time we emerged from a bait ball to find ourselves side-by-side, elbow-to-elbow with a 6-foot reef shark.
My brother has not gone in the water ever since.
And I think I wet myself.
This event happened many years ago, back in the early 1990s, even before I was a scuba diver, and I'm finally feeling secure enough to tell you my Darwin tale.
It was my first trip to Nassau in the Bahamas. We arrived late in the evening and stayed in a hotel on the beach, down from the new Atlantis Hotel.
The "Cove" at the Atlantis Hotel
After dumping our bags in our rooms, we took a midnight walk up the beach to Atlantis.
There at Atlantis, we found a HUGE swimming pool called the "Cove." The pool was empty, but it sure looked cool and inviting in the heat of the evening. We walked around the pool, passing by chairs and tables right at the water's edge. I could imagine tourists sitting there in the heat of day, drinking cold beer and dangling their feet in the swimming pool....
We didn't see any signs telling us that the pool was closed at that hour, but we kept arguing about whether or not to jump in for a midnight swimming session.
Eventually we found a glass tunnel under the "swiming pool," and went down to take a look. To our surprise......
Dozens and dozens of dark figures swam overhead. It wasn't a swimming pool. It was a shark lagoon! 10-foot hammerheads! 6-foot reef sharks! Oh, my!
On that same trip, we did a lot of snorkeling off the beach, and found ourselves completely surrounded in huge schools of small fish. They surrounded us and followed us every where we went. One time we emerged from a bait ball to find ourselves side-by-side, elbow-to-elbow with a 6-foot reef shark.
My brother has not gone in the water ever since.
And I think I wet myself.
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