Monday, August 15, 2011

The Day I Swam with a Great White Shark!

So during my semi-religious watching of shark week a few weeks ago, I saw a show that talked a bit about how very very rare great white shark sightings in Hawaii are now becoming only very rare.  In other words, great whites have been known to come here, just not often and they don't stay long.  (Read this and this for more info on whites in HI)  Normally the only real shark threat in Hawaii are the tigers, and my chances of winning the lottery, getting struck by three lightning bolts, and getting a full pedicure from Natalie Portman, all on the same day...are greater than actually getting attacked by one of those.  But...the other day I was lifeguarding a group of tourons at one of our normal snorkel spots called Olowalu Bay.  It's an awesome spot to see green sea turtles (shark food).  I was in the water there for about an hour, everything was normal and we left.  About an hour later the captain got a text message.  It said that just an hour ago, a great white shark was sighted in Olowalu Bay.  It was such a crazy text we laughed about it wholly believing the message sender was playing a joke on us.  Today however, the sighting was made official through legit sources.  And all I can think about is how freaking cool it would have been to stick my face in the water and watch a great white shark swim by!  Bummer.  Sad I missed it.  So my claim to awesomeness is that I was swimming in little Olowalu Bay at the exact same time as a great white shark.  I'm awesome.  These lucky blokes didn't miss their chance to swim with a white though!  SO amazing!

 



On another note.  It has always been a dream of mine to ski and surf in the same day.  It's definitely a bucket list item.  This has great influence on my desire to move to New Zealand (which I will try again soon).  Today, I read this little article.   http://www.skinet.com/skiing/photo-gallery/ski-and-surf  Now I know the six places on earth that my heart would be completely content.

On another note...we saw SO many dolphins today!!  Have I even mentioned how awesome everything is?  Well it is.

REDACTED.  Lame...about an hour after I posted this, my reputable source came out saying that this great white shark sighting, was not actually a great white, but a mako shark.  Apparently this is a common mistake.  Boo, I'm not nearly as cool now...stupid mako that wasn't a great white.  I'm leaving this post up though, cuz the videos are cool.

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