Diving with the Hammerhead Shark

The day before we left Dahab, I was invited to travel south on a boat full of dive masters and instructors to seek out the alluring hammerhead shark. As a freshly certified Advanced diver, I felt ferociously out of my league and nervously anticipated having to be on my toes during my first dive "out in the blue", deep diving without a reference point such as a reef. Boarding the RIB (rubberized inflatable boat) from our safe stable yacht, I clenched its thin taut rope in my hand as the white-capping waves and the heavy aluminum tank on my back threw my weight around. My buddy - who had instructed my Advanced course - told me to inflate my BCD in case I fell out of the boat, because I "want to come back to the surface eventually". Um, yeah, I'd like that. I had no idea what to expect once we crashed into the water; maybe a school of hammerhead sharks were swarming the waters below and I would crash their party blinded by a flooded mask or drop like a rock to the bottom of the sea never to be found again. When someone next to me yelled, "Ready? One, two three, GO!" we all tumbled backward from the ledge of the boat, splashing through the surface facing skyward, overlapping limbs and falling all over each other until the water slowed our momentum and we spread out. I began counting to slow my breathing: in one...two...three... out one...two...three, look for my buddy, and establish my buoyancy. Balancing those tasks, I checked my pressure gauge to realize I was sinking, sinking to 115 feet, below our decided limit of 100 feet. In my barely-controlled ascent to my instructor's side, I registered the object beyond his pointing finger - a reef shark strutting its shark-swagger low on the reef wall, then vanishing.

Trying to keep my cool in front of 10 or so dive masters and instructors, I let go of my instructor's arm and within minutes, being there in the endless blue felt like breathing, or singing. It became completely natural and I relaxed enough to mimic the others by folding my hands idly over my waist and gazing around for any sign of a hammerhead. After 15 minutes of suspense and some false alarms from faraway unicorn fish, we headed back toward the reef. I was taking in the approaching colors of the coral and fish when WHOOSH! the current of my life swept us up and dragged us along the reef wall. Unable to fight it, I whirred past the fish as if watching crowds of people from my carnival horse on a merry-go-round. The exhilaration nearly distracted me from the current suddenly sucking me into the reef, but I tilted my chest and dodged the fire corals splayed out in front of me. The current dragged us sharply downward so I fought to steady myself near the surface with the others, who inflated a buoy to alert our boat for pickup.

The second dive was like the first: no hammerheads, but the third time we set out together, all 20+ of us. Swimming determinedly away from the reef and into the deep, we saw not even a single fish. It was only us and the impenetrable, blinding blue swallowing us whole. We were astronauts floating in space, bobbing around in our bizarre costumes, emitting chimneys of silver bubbles that glimmered like sequins, or diamonds. My eyes followed the jewels up, up up one hundred feet to the churning surface. How peaceful it was down here, how tormented the surface seemed. I became completely content with everything just as it was, I could swim across the sea as long as my air would allow me and then some, and I didn’t mind whether we saw any sharks or not. I think that made the moment we saw it all the more rewarding - in our gradual circle back to the reef, we hovered near the shipwreck and divers in front of us began pointing ahead, signaling a hammerhead approaching. My heart hammered; where was it; what if I missed it? But emerging blurred from the distance, the infamous alien figure was unmistakable. In only moments, the misshapen head with bulging eyes and the intimidating shark-shaped body with tall scythe-like tail graced its audience with its epic presence and, without hesitation, vanished out of sight. The divers turned around, up, and down to make whatever jubilant gestures they could behind all their gear, punching the space above their heads and shaking their fists like champions. The ecstasy was tangible, a taste in the water. Even before the shark returned, the ten-second sighting seemed enough for everyone to die happy.

When the shark emerged again, higher, closer, a couple divers just below me filmed it circling them, gliding and swaying and then sharply turning without effort. A short video from our 5 or 6 minutes in heaven with the shark is posted on my Facebook profile and on Sea Dancer Dive Center’s Facebook page. Check out the evidence!