Rip Current by Sharon Ward

Author:Sharon Ward [Ward, Sharon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-03-30T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 28

Shark Feeding

THE NEXT DAY Rafe and I had scheduled our dive in the shark tank at the Turtle Centre. The Centre usually didn’t hand-feed the sharks, so the experience would be almost as new to them as it was to us. Gary had expressed some trepidation about joining us in the tank, especially since while we’d be hand-feeding the sharks.

To accommodate his concerns, the Centre’s manager, Rafe, and I all agreed that it would be better if Gary filmed us from outside the tank, and Rafe and I would take turns filming each other from inside. Rafe and I were actually both relieved that Gary had made it so easy for us to keep him out of the shark tank. It was obvious to me that Rafe didn’t trust him as a dive buddy any more than I did. I hoped it wasn’t quite as obvious to Gary.

Hand feeding the extremely well-fed sharks in the tank probably wasn’t dangerous, but you never know with wild creatures. And despite the fact that they spent their lives in a giant tank with plenty of food to eat, these sharks were wild creatures.

We all knew that no matter what, Gary would never be as comfortable swimming with the sharks as Rafe and I were. Our unspoken concern was that the wily sharks might somehow sense his fear and decide to haze him a little bit.

Not necessarily to hurt him. Just to scare him.

For fun.

Or what passes for a shark’s idea of fun.

Very early that morning, Rafe and I hauled our tanks and gear to the top of the tank, which required climbing up several flights of stairs in the already hot sun. In addition to our usual gear, we had heavy chain mail dive skins that Gary, as publisher of Ecosphere, had procured for us to wear during the dive. The suits would cover our entire bodies, and they also included boots, hoods, and gloves to keep us safe if a shark got overexcited and decided to take a test bite. If a shark decided to rip off an arm or a leg, the chain mail probably couldn’t stop that, but they would prevent injuries from bumps and the occasional test nip.

These metal suits were heavy. Very heavy. We were both perspiring by the time we finished lugging everything up to the platform at the top of the predator tank.

The metal platform stuck out over the open water of the tank to allow the shark’s usual feeders to toss food to the tank’s inhabitants. The tank itself was made from a heavy plastic amalgam that was scratch resistant, strong enough to hold back the water, and optically engineered to eliminate distortion.

We rested on the platform for a few minutes while we discussed where Gary should take his positions during the dive, and we decided on specific images we wanted him to try to get. We definitely wanted shots of sharks taking food directly from our hands, preferably with our faces visible to viewers, and multiple shots of sharks approaching us from behind.

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