Here fishy, fishy, fishy....

I can't dive with tanks because I've got asthma (something about my lungs not coping with the pressure and imploding, very charming and all that). Instead I freedive without oxygen, I hold my breath and go under. My asthmatic lungs which, according to some know-it-all-GP, are to weak to cope with diving can support me for 03:16 minutes underwater.

Diving is religious. Hanging over the drop-off at the edge of the outer reef in the Coral Sea, waiting for the wildlife, shafts of sunlight disappearing down through the clear water, fifteen, maybe even twenty, meters of nothing beneath my feet. It's all silent but the sounds of a distant engine, maybe the swell against the shallow parts of the reef. All around me are the small fish of the reef, it's like a tourist brochure, it's like I'm inside the worlds largest aquarium.

An aquarium which is suddenly very empty. The fish are gone and below me, coming up from the drop-off are four dark shadows. Circling around each other and getting bigger by the second. To say that my adrenaline level is suddenly sky high is an understament... Every nature show I have ever seen is repeating itself in my mind, especially the shark attack bits. Especially the very detailed shots of row upon row of very very pointy teeth attacking underwater cages with divers inside. If I had a cage I'd be very happy...



The adrenalin in my body has quickly used up my oxygen supply and I'm forced to turn my back on the sharks and resurface for air. When I turn down again they are only three or four meters below me, swimming in a tight pack across the reef beneath my flippers. I try to stay as still as possible, heart racing, hands shaking and as they pass under me I turn around to watch them go. The last one, the smallest of the pack, turns and does a wide circle, sniffing the reef, almost stopping mid-water to watch me as I bob on the surface above him. With a sudden flick of his tail he turns around and swims off towards the rest of the pack and disappears again as dark shadows towards the edge of the reef and the drop-off.

I let out a stream of bubbles and go up for air again, suddenly very weak at the knees.

/Mel

P.s. turns out they were Black Tip Reef Sharks, a particularly nice and harmless shark the lives off small fish living on the reef. It thinks humans smell bad and in order to be attacked by one you'll need to seriously provoke it. But that makes me look less macho so just forget that bit.