shark-infested waters

5am: wakeup call.  Yuck.  Then I remember why I'm getting one: sharks!  Dress very quickly.  Still battling my cold means that I have to convince Divemaster (hai!) that I can breathe through a regulator.  At the marina, we board the Superfish and we're off.  It's still dead dark and it isn't until we're under the Golden Gate bridge that the sun finally makes an appearance (wrapped in fog, of course).  Divemaster catches me trying to surreptitiously blow my nose and asks if I'm sick:  yes.. but only a little!  I'm sure I'll be fine!  He asks me to take three deep breaths with my mouth closed.  That doesn't work.  Then he asks me to take three deep-ish breaths through a straw.  I start coughing halfway through the second one.  Sorry, grasshopper, no dive for you.  Come back, one year.  Half price.  Hai Divemaster.  My scopamine patch cannot stop this particular feeling of sickness on the belly.

Once we clear the Bay, it's nothing but open ocean until we hit the Farallon Islands.  And open ocean means three things around here: cold, rough and boring.  Didn't help that there was no sun and it was nearly two hours before we get to our destination.  Of the twelve of us on the boat, at least eight seek refuge in the cabin, eyes closed and hoping not to chum the waters ourselves.  And then we're there.  The Farallons: nothing but a hunk of rock with some seals, gulls and a few gazillion flies.  Why do they need a research station out here?  and why is this, of all places, a sanctuary?  Birds, apparently.  And the seals are the perfect bait for some hungry, hungry Great Whites.  I watch, in jealousy, as the first three people change into their wetsuits and lower themselves into the cage.  I am not, however, envious of them entirely.  The water is a frigid 10C.  And now we wait for our sharks.

Here's the thing, though: no chum in the water.  According to Divemaster (hai!), Great Whites are only interested in seal meat, so chumming with anything else is "useless" - okay, but why would a shark (a creature so lazy, it has decided that it will only eat in the most efficient way possible) come anywhere near a boat when it could just east seals?  And, though it may be a "visual hunter", why would it go our decoys when the water visibility was so crappy?  But, hey, these guys are the professionals.  It's now 0900 and we have seven hours to go.

By 1330, everyone has been in the cage and has seen absolutely nothing.  Topside, I've seen a few seals in the water, a couple of grey whales, but that's it.  Suddenly, my not being in 10C water isn't so bad.  At 1400, we call it quits.  The weather is dismal and cold, providing no visibility (my picture of the grey whale?  in grey water against a grey sky?  yeah.  useless.), and the water is really choppy.  Sometimes it was calms for many moments and then we'd get rocked for no reason, pitching us against railings and throwing all our gear all over the cabin.  Personally, I think a few Great Whites figured us out and decided to knock us about a bit.  I mean, it's not like we could see them even five feet under the water.  On our way back, we encountered Blue Whales (they were HUGE!!  40 feet at least).  But our extended visit with them was too much for even me and for the first time ever, I contributed my own biofluids to the ocean.  Ew.

As usual, what makes trips like this fun despite crushing disappointment are the people you share them with.  JS from Oklahoma kept me laughing even in the van ride back.  The Vannahs (from Vegas) we re great company on the boat, giving us a list of must-eats in SanFran and SinCity.  In turn, I promised to share my NFLD itinerary with them - yes, I did my part for Canadian Tourism.  Marshall (that crazy mofo who spent three HOURS in the cage) was also a good sport.  The LucasFilm sweethearts summed up my feeling exactly: "I'll take a dorsal fin, like, 300 feet away at this point!"

What I learned:
1) I am clearly a landlubber.  Even as I type this, I'm gently weaving side-to-side as if I'm still on that boat.
2) No shark-diving without chum.  Ever.
3) Beware of cold-water diving.

Next: drowning my sorrows in Napa!