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David's Pictures

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Amber's Pictures

Amber's Journal After two days with just shorty dive suits, the divemasters put us in encounter suits-I don't blame them after two people having jellyfish encounters, and us getting "reefed"! For the prior two days of our diving, David was quite disappointed we hadn't seen any sharks. Me, not so much. I'm great with them at Epcot since they're well-fed non-aggressive species who are accustomed to humans, and I was also quite happy with all the merry profusion of fancy fishies and corals to goggle at. But today... from the blue haze in the distance cut some swift forms, sending my mind reeling with surprise, my heart racing with adrenaline... and then my fingers fumbling madly for my camera! I've come a long way since I first put on fins... started diving terrified of deep water, things around my neck, the dark... and sharks. After the first rush of fear (and remembering the dive master telling us there were only Gray Tip Reef Sharks NOT Great Whites in this area, I was amazed by the sharks! On the second and third day we also did something crazy called "drift diving". You jump off the side of a ship that has basically slowed to a crawl NOT COMPLETELY STOPPED and let the current take you. The boat chugs ahead to where the current takes you and when you pop up... there it is again. Like magic... kind of scary magic. After three days of dives, close scrapes with the corals, and a lot of "Eeek, the current's pushing me RIGHT AT THE REEF MAYDAY... FINS FINS FINS!" I examined the mouthpiece of my regulator... and found I'd bitten nearly through the soft rubber! We think the impact of the nine dives may have made my jaw clip together, plus I know I got a bit nervous at times trying to avoid hitting coral, confronting primal fears, so I may have borne down harder than normal on it. But dangit, these dives were WORTH eating my reg!

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