Surviving Sharks (Part One)

Sixty feet below the surface of the warm Caribbean Sea, sediment from an old shipwreck is stirred up and visibility is reduced to a foot in front of my face. Particles swirl around my oxygen tank and regulator, blotting out the view through my dive mask. In the meantime, I’m being bumped and jostled by huge beings covered in skin with the feel of rubbery sandpaper, their mouths filled with razor-sharp teeth. One tries to go between my legs, another hits my shoulder with the force of a hockey check. Less than twenty-four hours ago, I received my dive certification. Most people get their certification and complete at least ten open-water dives to gain experience before they start pushing the limits. Yet there I was, on my first dive ever, trying to stay balanced on the deck of a Caribbean shipwreck. I just hoped I was breathing correctly. I struggle to hold my body in a comfortable position, a proposition made much more difficult by the heavy cage full of dead fish I hold in one hand and the spear in the other. I’m attempting to feed the twenty-five reef sharks circling around me, all ravenous for a taste. Ten feet away swim two cameramen who capture it all on film. Idiotic, you say? Probably. But for some reason, TV producers are obsessed with ratings, and they seem to think that my role as Survivorman makes me a suitable candidate for this kind of thing. To be fair, I did grow up a huge fan of Jacques Cousteau. So, after forty-five years of snorkeling experience, when the chance came to dive with sharks, I jumped in headfirst. When I was asked to host the twenty-fifth anniversary of Shark Week for the Discovery Channel, I may have played it cool on the phone, but I was jumping for joy. Sometimes, the chance for the thrill of a lifetime has to be accepted without questioning the repercussions. The opportunity may not return. Coast of Florida I grew up wanting to be like Tarzan. I watched those Johnny Weissmuller movies religiously every Saturday morning. But our shark wrangler, Manny Puig, actually thinks he is Tarzan. Hell, he might actually be! “I’m going to get you to catch a ride on a great hammerhead shark’s dorsal fin, Les!” Manny proclaims. “I’m in!” I call back. Three hours later, Manny and I float in the gulf waters off the coast of Florida, me in my trunks and Manny in his Speedo. Manny scrapes a knife against the side of a dead fish (the sound is supposed to attract hammerhead sharks); I’m trying not to swallow salt water through my snorkel. Suddenly, producer Scott Gurney screams, “Get Les out of the water—now!” I pretend not to hear, and dunk my head under the water to get ready for the ride. The hammerhead is about ten feet below me, doing side-to-side chomps on the bait; the sound is remarkably audible under the water. Without warning, Manny grabs my forearm and slams my hand down onto the shark’s surprisingly rough dorsal fin. I’m not ready, and haven’t yet taken a full breath of air, so off I go on a seven-foot-long shark ride of naturalist, shark-loving bliss. The hammerhead comes back a few more times, and I free dive down to caress him on a few of his passes until he swims away. But Manny isn’t through with me yet. Next, he wants me to hand-feed a lemon shark. Don’t let the name fool you: lemon sharks can be very aggressive and are big enough to rip a man to pieces. “They can be really nasty, these lemons,” he cautioned. “Without warning, they just get pissed at you, turn around, and snap your hand off.” Nevertheless, I’m soon floating in six feet of murky water with two-foot visibility, with Manny again scraping dead fish. This is just eerie, because I can’t see a thing. There will be no warning. The big lemon shark will just appear out of nowhere and cruise past my very bare feet, all while I’m holding bait in my hand and scraping it with a knife. Four hours into the test, I dangle the fish below my body, trying not to think about the cramps developing in my arm. Finally, a big lemon rises from the depths, lifts its head, and rips the dead fish from my hand. Mission complete. Bahamas Dive shop owner Stuart Cove and I kneel beside one another, forty-five feet underwater on the deck of a rotting shipwreck. The twenty-five Caribbean reef sharks circling us, some as long as nine feet, come within inches of us to take a hunk of fish off our spears. As the pieces start to get smaller, my confidence increases, so I figure I’ll just use my hands. Big mistake. I’m waving a juicy morsel of tuna in the water when a shark suddenly turns more quickly than I expect and takes the bait—and my hand!—in its mouth. The shark chomps down on me. I’m surprised by the feeling, which is very similar to the bite of a large dog. It’s a good thing I’m wearing protective chain-mail gloves, because otherwise I’d be typing this manuscript with only one hand. The shark’s teeth cut down to my knuckle, but, thanks to the chain mail, not through. I thrash and pull my hand out while delivering a left jab to the shark’s side to push it away. As it turns, it takes the cameraman’s arm in its mouth; fortunately, he too is wearing chain-mail gloves. When we surface, my air has run out due to the excitement. But that doesn’t stop me from yelling, “That had to be the coolest thing I have ever done