Blood Among the Sharks: A Big Risk for Big Rewards Leads to a Big Lesson
You're Too Old to Spend the Rest of Your Life on the Couch: Let's Adventure!
A risk, a rescue and some gorgeous lessons, like them or not
Dear Reader: I took this trip in 2002, long before I had the right kind of camera, and the crews who took the video didn’t choose to share theirs as the film belonged to major networks. All photos/videos are from Unsplash, Wikipedia and YouTube, and the stories are true.
The pain in my right ear was terrific. I was so busy staring around me that I’d lost track of where I was in the ocean off the coast of the Transkei of South Africa. There were bull sharks and hammerheads, common dolphins and billions upon billions of sardines, their prey.
Unbeknownst to me, blood was pouring from my right ear into an ocean thick with predators. I’d blown out my ear drum, the result of a too-rapid descent in the forty-degree waters.
Behind me, a bull shark had caught the scent and was heading my way.
I was diving the Sardine Run, courtesy Blue Wilderness Dive Expeditions, run by Mark Addison. For those not familiar with this unbelievable spectacle, see this article. The Sardine Run is one of the world’s great diving adventures.
For a full-on view of what I was doing, please see this:
Let me back up.
The year before I arrived in South Africa, Mark had been hired by National Geographic to do a feature on this incredible event. Mark knows these waters and their denizens better than anyone else. As a result, any professional film crew who wants prime footage of this incredible annual event, one of the largest migrations of living things on Earth, books with Mark.
A friend of mine named Roger Whitehead, a true adventurer, the best storyteller I’ve ever met and a Brit to boot, had spent time with Mark and other adventurous souls all over South Africa.
Roger was a seriously talented scuba diver, sky diver, cave diver and much more with a PhD in sports medicine. We’d met on a dating site and ended up friends. Little did Roger know that his tales would end up inspiring me to gear up and head to Africa myself.
I had my PADI certificate. Granted, I was a rank rookie. I dragged out my gear, headed to the local pool in landlocked Durango, Colorado where some scuba review lessons re-familiarized me with my equipment and jacked up my confidence.
Far more sure of myself than I should have been, I took Roger’s long list of referrals, my gear and headed to Africa in 2002 on my first true adventure trip. He had generously introduced me to the people he’d met, and they were happy to show me their world.
I would spend some four weeks in South Africa. This was just one chapter. It turned out to be a doozy and almost cost me my life.
Before heading to the Blue Wilderness’ base in the remote Transkei region, I had interviewed record-holding deep sea diver Nuno Gomez in Johannesburg. Gomez also sold me some brand-new Poseidon scuba gear at a ridiculous discount, since all manner of companies send him free equipment in hopes of a promotional mention.
Always keen for a deal, I bought the new regulator/octopus, stowed it in my car and made my way to the Transkei.
Mark’s facility, located at the end of a long, potholed, barely-navigable road was spare, wonderfully raw and close to nature. The outfit was wholly dedicated to the Sardine Run and little else. You could count on the best of all opportunities to see the run before the migration began to fan out into the Indian Ocean closer to Durban, well north.
We’d eat ridiculously good food, tell ridiculously tall tales (some actually true) and be around the best in the business.
I was exceedingly lucky to be there and it was only because of Roger. All these people were seasoned divers. I had perhaps forty dives, at best. I was game, but not tested. Certainly not in icy, rough waters full of apex predators.
The other divers were national film crews ready to head out as the run was already underway. The Transkei was an ideal location to catch the parade of all those fish and all the hunters as they moved north in this great annual migration of moving seafood.
An ultralight would radio our dinghy pilot the location of anything worth filming. Mark’s operation was well-run and well-coordinated. Everyone was expected to be mindful of one another in these dangerous waters even as they focused on bringing home breathtaking images for their producers.
I wanted to break in Nuno’s gear, so I set everything up using the new regulator. I took my kit around to three or four people to inspect to make sure it was in perfect working order. It was new to me, unused, and I was about to toss myself into very cold water with a battalion of hungry sharks.
Everyone gave me the thumb’s up. Full of the false confidence of the just-educated-enough rookie, I was sure everything was just fine. I had taken pool reminder lessons, right?
The next morning we geared up, leapt into the dinghy (knowing me I fell in) and took off. Because these were film crews and I was a thumb, I didn’t have an assigned buddy. It was also assumed I was expert enough to know what I was doing if I got in trouble.
Only part of that was true.
We skidded across choppy, cold waters, bouncing hard and stopping only when there was something to investigate or film. Overhead the ultralight pilot called in anything he saw, its location and where our dinghy pilot needed to go.
Our first sighting was around 8:30 am. The ultralight pilot spotted some twenty-five thousand common dolphin were moving as a single body, so we rushed out to be in their path.
As soon as we came to a stop, all of us masked up and slipped backwards into the heavy waves. I had on a double 7mm wetsuit. Still, the water was painful as it hit my face and slipped into my suit next to my skin. The film crews got busy getting their shots, and I got busy trying to sink so that I could watch.
I was too buoyant. Bigger than I am now, the combination of the heavy neoprene and my body fat made it impossible to sink deeply. Still, I was submerged enough to be a curiosity to these intelligent animals.
Often in threes, they would rocket up to my mask, peer at me and rocket away. Just to be that close was breathtaking. I was too buoyant to get any lower so spent my time in that location bobbing and ducking and watching until we were all called back to the dinghy.
A bait ball was forming.
The bait ball is the best part of the Sardine Run.
We clambered back aboard and our pilot sped towards the new location. Meanwhile the crew loaded me up with more weights.
Lots of them.
More comfortable the second time around, I slipped back into the water, this time comfortably submerging. I started to clear my eardrums, which resisted. I blew harder.
Suddenly my right eardrum popped painfully.
I stopped blowing to let the pain subside and just took in the surroundings.
Deep blue ocean, full of billions of bright silver sardines moving at speed, dolphins and hammerheads and bull sharks corralling them into a ball. It was transfixing. From above, the birds dove to get dinner, leaving jet trails of bubbles behind them.
It was astounding. Mesmerizing. I wasn’t paying attention to anything else.
For a while I just watched. We were in some 600 meters of water. There was no ocean floor or reef for reference. I watched the sardines, the sharks, the film crews as they operated.
Then I realized, stupidly, that I needed to get some air into my buoyancy compensator, or BC. I pressed the button to move air from my tank into my BC.
Nothing. No sound. No air. No good.
I looked at my dive compass. The depth shocked me. That can’t possibly be right. Then I looked up.
There, some ninety feet over my head, was our tinky dinghy. I was still descending.
HOLY SHIT.
I tried the button to inflate my BC twice more. I tried to inflate my BC manually but the pressure was so powerful all I did was swallow sea water.
I was in serious trouble.
What I didn’t know was that my right ear was sending a tiny river of fresh blood into the ocean like a scent trail. A bull shark, famously aggressive, had picked up the scent.
Blissfully unaware of the bull shark, I located one of the film crew. He gave me the OK sign. I signed that I was in trouble and needed to go up. He finned over and gently grasped my right shoulder. I went totally limp to allow a safe ascent.
By that time, however, we were so far down that we had to stop every fifty feet for 2-3 and up to 5-6 minutes to prevent a deadly case of the bends. Had I remembered to drop my weight belt, there was a good chance that I might have shot to the surface to get air, only to kill myself in the process.
Another diver, an Italian with flowing blonde locks we had nicknamed Fabio, saw us. We signaled him over and he grasped my left shoulder. As the three of us slowly rose, I was breathing like a locomotive.
I’m frankly terrified of drowning, but I also don’t panic. My body was completely relaxed. Inside was a different story.
My heartbeat was on overdrive and my breathing was too fast, but I had a full tank of air and two very calm, capable dive masters on each side. That was the conversation going on in my head.
Calm down. You are totally safe.
You’ll be just fine. The adrenaline was screaming like a NASCAR race on steroids.
I stayed relaxed.
You panic, you die.
For reference, here’s what a bull shark looks like (Wikipedia)
Another member of a film crew had spotted us and the bull shark. We were busy heading to the dinghy, he was busy filming the shark who was busy following my blood.
As soon as we got to the top and I grasped the edge of the dinghy I felt the results of the adrenaline. I was limp and exhausted. The slow rise, necessary for all our safety, had taken what felt like months, but was only minutes. I was hauled aboard.
We all laughed, relieved.
Then we checked my gear, curious as to why on earth my BC wasn’t inflating.
There was no air hose connecting my tank to the BC.
Nobody had caught it.
I should have. My gear, my responsibility.
Doesn’t matter how many people missed it.
My gear, my responsibility.
Everyone was terribly solicitous, and offered to take me to shore. I was fine to stay in the boat and keep at it until we got back.
At dinner that night, along with all the crews’ video, we all got to see the shark who had taken such an interest in me, and the competent care both divers had taken to get me to the top.
The next day I had a brutal migraine, the inevitable result of that much adrenaline charging through the body. That headache would have killed a hippo.
A rumor made the rounds that because I was an American, it was inevitable that I’d sue Mark and Blue Wilderness. That’s how the world sees Americans, not without good reason.
I had chosen to go on this trip which was primarily for experts. I had chosen to use untested gear. My choices. Nobody else’s.
I found out later that plenty of divers in South Africa don’t bother with a BC, so what they saw was normal to them.
You can blame all you like, but bottom line, my gear. My responsibility.
A Rotary club doctor in Port Elizabeth fixed my ear. Later I went diving further north along the coast in the remarkably warm waters that support the coral reefs of the KwaZulu Natal. Get back on the horse, they say.
My ear healed. I did dive again.
It was deeply humbling. Too many people don’t come back from such mistakes. I’m incredibly fortunate that I knew enough to stay calm, how to signal distress, and make it easy to be taken to the surface.
The rest was sheer luck, the luck of being around consummate professionals who recognize that accidents can happen to anyone.
And did.
Just to demonstrate that we all go stupid, one British cameraman had been in Durban when I arrived. He turned up just before I left. His arm had massive bite marks, now stapled together, on his left elbow. He was unwrapping the gauze, showing off the shiny silver staples to his mates.
Contrary to Mark’s strict warnings and clear directions to stay in the dinghy, said cameraman had launched himself right into the middle of the churning bait ball, where hammerheads and bull sharks were chomping their way from one side of the teeming mass of food to the other.
Damned fool nearly lost his left arm. Here he was bragging about his bravery while the staff kept their counsel.
And I thought I was an idiot.
This guy, well. I’ll leave it at that.
We all make mistakes. If we’re lucky, we get to tell the tale.
If we’re smart, we learn from them.
It would be another eleven years before I launched my adventure travel career, taking on mountains and horses and rafting and a slew of other sports. I’ve had plenty of accidents and injuries. I’ve come home on stretchers more than once.
I’ve done plenty of stupid things. Otherwise I’d have no comedy material.
That said, I never used, and never again will use, unfamiliar gear.
Perhaps more importantly, I never blame other people for my mistakes. If I do, I never learn the lesson.
Let’s play, let’s play hard, but let’s also play smart.
Thanks for joining me on this memory. It was fun- sort of- to head back to the Sardine Run. There are more stories from that trip so stay tuned!
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Either way, please take serious risks seriously.
This is one of those reads I'm too astounded to comment. I'll leave it at that. Wow.
Amazing and deeply scary all at once.