I’m not a certified diver, but when I heard that you could try scuba without certification, and that there would be someone there to be with you the whole time and guide you, I was in. Why did I want to try it? The animal encounter sounded swell to me, to be able to feed a Goliath grouper and pet him, and to be able to feed sharks and turtles, was something that sounded fun. I was right! It was fun, though I admit at the beginning I was thinking i would not be able to do it. Hans, my instructor got me into gear, explained how things worked, and once I was in the water, asked me to snorkel a bit to get used to the breathing apparatus. At first it did not feel like I was getting enough air, and I told him so. He adjusted something on the regulator and it was better.
What I couldn’t get used to was the noise I was making when I was breathing and the bubbles were everywhere! It was a weird feeling. Mostly I just wanted to concentrate on breathing in and out! The whole experience was about 45 min or so I think… we submerged, and Hans guided me over to a lead/cement pad that had re-bar type metal hand holds. I grabbed on and was able to anchor myself as the big rays came swooping in for a tasty morsel. Hans had some fish in a bucket that he gave me and he had told me how to feed the sharks, turtles, rays and Herbie, so as to not get my fingers bit or in the case of the rays, sucked! All went well and I came home with all fingers intact.
The rays glide up to you and were climbing up me looking for food. I was able to feed several by putting the fish low and they have their mouths on the bottom of their bodies so they positioned themselves over the food and slurp! it’s gone, sucked into the vacuum. While I was with the rays the resident Porcupine fish came over for his meal and I obliged him with a couple of fish. The french grunts were pigs and always in there trying to hog the fish as I was trying to feed anyone. They are the yellow fish with blue stripes. They have tiny teeth but this trip I managed not to get bit by them 🙂
Herbie the Goliath grouper was our next stop! Hans explained before hand, to feed him you have to wave and dangle a fish in front of his giant mouth and wave it and let it go, he sucks the fish in by gulping in water and the fish, and Hans said it was 70 gallons of water Herbie sucked in to get the fish..my hands were NO WHERE near his mouth.
After the the Herbinator, we went over to the nurse sharks and sea turtle enclosure where I was able to feed nurse sharks, by far the pushiest and greediest of the lot! The turtles were trying hard to get into position for a fish. Hans fed one over by the wired enclosure through the fence, and I stayed behind the Plexiglas that had a small hole to put the fish in. I remembered Han’s instruction on how to hold the fish out to the sharks, and to not have fingers waving too, because the sharks don’t see one fish and 5 fingers, they see 6 fish! The nurse sharks were like hoovers, sucking the fish. The sea Turtles on the other hand, when they came up to get the fish, gently took it from me, it was pretty cool and something I will never forget. They are lovely.
Next were the lemon sharks. These sharks were large! I don’t know exactly how big they were or if the mask made everything look larger but to me they seemed a good 10-13 feet. Our book says max 11 feet, but I saw some that seemed larger than that. These sharks don’t suck the fish like the nurse ones, they suck in water too but they bite the fish too. Was pretty cool being so close to them, one of them butted the Plexiglas, more interested in me than the wee fish I had for him!
There were other fish swimming around in the enclosure , a common snook, some large tarpons, and a permit fish! Pretty cool experience and Hans had the patience of Job with me. He was funny and put me at ease and he was very professional. It was a swell experience and one I will never forget. He also showed me a conch with a live body in it! Usually you just see the empty shells for sale, this baby was alive and doing just fine, thank you very much!
I regret that Maurice and I did not do the Dolphin encounter at the Royal Sea Aquarium in Curacao, they have the Dolphin Academy there and if we go back, I will do it next time. I can see snorkeling with the dolphins, that would be very cool indeed, versus just standing with them petting them. I want to swim with them, it was amazing to watch them interact with people.
I did get to be around the dolphins in the water where they were swimming and playing and chattering away. Hans explained I could not use any hand motions, to keep hands to my side or across my chest, as trainers use hand signals to communicate with the dolphins. They were doing dolphin therapy and I didn’t want to mess anything up by inadvertently signalling them to do something! I kept my hands down except to take this movie of them. I could hear them coming because of their high pitched noises they made. I made a small movie of them coming by me, they came within less than a foot at times, it was thrilling and I can see why there IS dolphin therapy – they certainly worked their magic on me!
