Shark!
Wreck Dive
DRAPER’S PAPER ROUTE
SHARK!
by Adam Carroll Draper
We were around sixty-five feet down, floating about five feet above the deck of an old wreck in all its reefed wonder, when Stef got my attention and pointed to my right. I thought she wanted me to check out some cool, yellow coral that I had just passed, so I turned slowly to look, and got a little surprise. About a foot below me and maybe a foot to my right, an eight to ten foot sand tiger shark was gliding by me with an entourage of some little hangers on. (The picture above was taken on our dive). We had seen her before, and she had no particular interest in me, but I have to say that a bit a of a tingle shot down my spine.
Stef and I made our first open water dive on Labor Day. I knew I would like it, but I had no frame of reference for the awe and the giddy splendor of the experience. Just writing about it is making me smile even now.
We made two dives that day. On the second dive, we saw a school of mullet shimmering about ten feet above the wreck as various king mackerel and a fat boy that looked for all the world like a crappie Frankenstein (which I later determined was a triple tail) shot through it. I must have floated there for around five minutes, just watching that dance of death and life with the whole school shifting and changing hues as each predator made its feeding run through their midst. It felt like life, at once beautiful and terrible.
Captain Dave with Carolina Beach Scuba was the brave skipper willing to take me twenty miles off shore. The forecast for Labor Day had been that it would be a beautiful, smooth day, perfect for my squeamish stomach. I get nauseous riding in a car. I took Dramamine the night before and a half hour before we left. But was it a smooth day? Oh no. When we got out there, it was about as rough as it could be without calling the dive. That was it for me. Dave gave me a bucket and I drove that Buick during the parts of the trip spent above water.
It was a day of contrasts.
As I was fighting the overwhelming feeling that death would be a preferable alternative to my bucket experience, I had to keep reminding myself that I would be fine once I got under water. Living through the time it took to get there was not fun. I could not help comparing the moment to our experience in this life. No matter how overwhelming it gets, there is a coming bliss. In him is the fullness of joy forever more. Don’t give up hope. I kept telling myself that, but all that really came out was, “Dad, help!”
What a day. It felt like a Dickens novel. It was the best of days. It was the worst of days. Can’t wait to do it again. That is life’s dichotomy.. Terrible. Beautiful. Oh, so worth the coming glory!
By the way, if there are sharks in heaven, I assume they don’t bite, right?
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