Since I was young, I have always been fascinated with sharks.
I’m still not sure why that is, particularly because was afraid of the black line markings in pool when I learnt to swim (a weird fear I realise).
Perhaps it’s because sharks are powerful, silent killers of the ocean who cover great distances of the earth and lurk in the shadows.
I attempted to overcome my fear of the unknown in the ocean by doing the PADI open water diver training (yet I had a pretty bad run in with alternobaric vertigo while under water on my first ocean dive.)
Fascination may not be the best word either: fearful is certainly accurate!
In 2012 I got the opportunity to see tiger and hammerhead sharks in a cage off the coast of Maui in Hawaii.
An amazing experience.
And since that trip I was hooked.
However tiger and hammerheads are no Great White.
So Great Whites went on the bucket list.
It was a year later in 2013 that I ventured to Port Lincoln on the Eyre Peninsula of South Australia to try and see one.
It was an epic journey:
- A taxi
- A flight
- Another taxi
- A hotel
- A hire car
- A 3 hour boat trip to the Neptune Islands (where nearly everyone on board was sea-sick due to rough seas).
And we didn’t see one shark!
I changed and delayed my flights home to try again the next day.
And guess what?
Same as before.
We didn’t get see a shark that day either.
So an extra night in the hotel, a taxi and flight home with nothing.
It was a big investment of time, labour and money to not tick something off my bucket list.
Disappointed is an understatement!
And because it wasn’t ticked off the list, it made me hungrier for the experience.
Fast forward 3 years and a good friend of mines husband was killed by a Great White in the Pacific.
Pretty devastating in itself, but it also had a lot of other consequences for their family.
Then guess what popped up?
An opportunity to go back to back to Port Lincoln to hopefully see a Great White.
I joked with the same friend that the universe wouldn’t take two people she love from her.
So I jumped at the offer.
And here is what the weekend had in store…
Massive thanks to thanks to Adventure Bay Charters for putting on a great show!
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