Shark Hunt

(It was actually a shark tooth hunt-- but that makes for a far less gripping headline... yellow journalism at its best)

Since we no longer have the Discovery Channel, we put the Shark Week dvds on our Blockbuster Online queue and spent all of last week watching them as a family. While watching one particular gruesome show on shark attack victims, Lance turns to me and says, "We need to go scuba diving."

So we did. We went to Venice Beach-- about an hour south of Tampa. It is the shark tooth capital of the world. Scuba divers from from all over the world come to Venice to collect shark teeth. We went with some friends (our first time going without an instructor). It was awesome because it is a beach dive. So we walked past the "common beach dwellers" with all of our scuba gear and took off into the water. In my mind, we would be an extraordinary sight. People would stop and stare, mouths agape at our audacity and bravery. We would salute them as we resolutely marched into the depths of the sea. I even strapped on my trusty dive knife in anticipation of our "shark hunt" (very James Bond). My glorified vision did not come to fruition. If you have ever seen anyone walk with fins on-- you can imagine that our entrance into the Gulf was more of a an awkward, backwards shuffle. We swam/ floated out to the buoys and went under.

The water that seemed so crystal clear by the beach was unbelievably murky 20-30 feet under the surface. It was quite an effort to stay next to Lance. We collected shells, starfish, and sand dollars but only one shark tooth.By the time we re-surfaced, we had drifted so far out that we couldn't see the buoys at all and it took us quite a while to swim back to shore. This was when the panic set in. It occurred to me that the widely recognized "Shark Tooth Capital of the World" probably has quite a few shark residents. While on the ocean floor, they do not seem like much a threat-- with all of our gear and bubbles. But while surface swimming in murky water-- I convinced myself that I looked just like some kind of floundering prey to a hungry tiger shark or bull shark. Lance thought it was hilarious to look behind me and act startled.

Well, after driving my husband crazy with my "clingy swimming" (his fault for making me watch "Shark Week"), we made it back to the beach alive.It was our first (of many, I hope) successful dive since becoming certified.