I asked my buddy Bob at the end of the dive. "I know I was narced a bit, but I just want to make sure." Bob replied "Oh yeah, that was indeed a six gill." That also confirmed the new sign that he gave me after we left her at 85'. It kind of looked like one of the guys in the end zone just after a fifty yard field goal has been kicked. You know the one where the guy is up on both feet, hands raised high above his head, with fists and body shaking. If I hadn't know that Bob was just on EAN 21 then I might have thought he was toxing, that and he was executing a perfect frog kick all the while. "Holy Cow" was all I could come up with in response. Then I started playing the dive back in my head.
We got down to 68' and I signaled Bob that I was feeling a bit narced (due to recent stress, lack of sleep, not well hydrated etc...) and didn't want to continue deeper. No worries, we just cruised along for a minute or so at that level. I then signaled to him that I was feeling a bit better and thought we could go down a few more feet. No sooner had we made the turn, when out of the deep coming towards us was a beautiful female six gill. I blinked twice, cleaned my mask, checked my guages and then looked to make sure that Bob was seeing the same thing as me. I've been narced far worse in the past but seeing one of these fish is pretty rare, so I had to make sure that I was on the same reality plain as Bob. Then too, he might have been having a Grateful Dead flashback... Yep, we certainly were seeing the same shark. We swam with her, keeping about 10 - 15' away and not shining our HID lights in her eyes. She was about 8 or so feet long, no scars and very healthy looking. Considering we had 25' of vis, I was happy to keep a respectful distance. They eat divers don't they? At any rate we stayed with her for 3 minutes which was long enough even for my narced brain to fully grasp what a fabulous experience this was. Then Bob did his field goal cheer and I knew it was time to check out the rest of the area.
Funny thing happened right after that - Bob found his reverse gear and executed a number of flawless reverse frog kicks. I found myself thinking that either I was really narced or Bob was going to do this all the way to Bellingham. Way to go Bob. That DIR-F demon shall bother you no more!
We surface after 61 minutes and that was when I blurted out "Was that a six gill we just saw?" At 7:30 pm the sun was still high in the Seattle sky and the temp. was a pleasant 75 degrees. A perfect way to end a perfect dive with a great dive buddy. Thanks Bob!
We got down to 68' and I signaled Bob that I was feeling a bit narced (due to recent stress, lack of sleep, not well hydrated etc...) and didn't want to continue deeper. No worries, we just cruised along for a minute or so at that level. I then signaled to him that I was feeling a bit better and thought we could go down a few more feet. No sooner had we made the turn, when out of the deep coming towards us was a beautiful female six gill. I blinked twice, cleaned my mask, checked my guages and then looked to make sure that Bob was seeing the same thing as me. I've been narced far worse in the past but seeing one of these fish is pretty rare, so I had to make sure that I was on the same reality plain as Bob. Then too, he might have been having a Grateful Dead flashback... Yep, we certainly were seeing the same shark. We swam with her, keeping about 10 - 15' away and not shining our HID lights in her eyes. She was about 8 or so feet long, no scars and very healthy looking. Considering we had 25' of vis, I was happy to keep a respectful distance. They eat divers don't they? At any rate we stayed with her for 3 minutes which was long enough even for my narced brain to fully grasp what a fabulous experience this was. Then Bob did his field goal cheer and I knew it was time to check out the rest of the area.
Funny thing happened right after that - Bob found his reverse gear and executed a number of flawless reverse frog kicks. I found myself thinking that either I was really narced or Bob was going to do this all the way to Bellingham. Way to go Bob. That DIR-F demon shall bother you no more!
We surface after 61 minutes and that was when I blurted out "Was that a six gill we just saw?" At 7:30 pm the sun was still high in the Seattle sky and the temp. was a pleasant 75 degrees. A perfect way to end a perfect dive with a great dive buddy. Thanks Bob!
