Diving With Sharks Quotes

When your heart is broken you plant seeds in the cracks and you pray for rain. And you teach your sons and daughters there are sharks in the water but the only way to survive is to breathe deep and dive.

The day I bought my cane, I realized I was through with the burden of feet. Instead, I am going to become a mermaid. I have always liked the ocean, the promise of depth. I am tired of this dry world, all of this dust and sickness, these barren fields. I want to dive without drowning. I want to kiss sharks. I want men to carve me into the bows of their ships like a prayer, before I lure them into the depths with my fishnet mouth. I want the beauty, the gorgeous mutation, the fairytale of half body. All the wisdom of a woman, without the failures of sex. I am plunging. I am not coming up for air. I do not want all this human, my legs move like they resent being legs, my body is wrecked by all this gravity. I cannot face another morning waking up with no hope of a fairytale. Here on land, I am always drowning. Here on land, I cannot move.

only dare tread the waters of insanity at night as they lie dreaming. Cowards. Dive deep into your psychopathy. Let loose the demons of delusion and know, in the end, when they finally devour you, you swam with sharks. —VERSKLAVEN SCHWACHE, GEFAHRGEIST PHILOSOPHER

Waterhouse's new roommate is out of town just now, but by glancing over his personal effects, Waterhouse estimates that he is paddling a black kayak from Australia to Yokosuka Naval Base, where he will slip on board a battleship and silently kill its entire crew with his bare hands before doing an Olympic-qualifying dive into the bay, punching out a few sharks, climbing back into his kayak and paddling back to Australia for a beer.

With knowledge accumulated from dozens of expeditions and hundreds of dives and countless encounters with sharks of many kinds came the realization that I could never write Jaws today. I could never demonize an animal, especially not an animal that is much older and much more successful in its habitat than man is, has been, or ever will be, an animal that is vitally necessary for the balance of nature in the sea, and an animal that we may—if we don’t change our destructive behaviors—extinguish from the face of the earth.

Imagine that while scuba diving, you suddenly see a shark glide into view. Your heart starts to pound and your anxiety skyrockets. You’re terrified, which is a perfectly rational and understandable feeling. Now imagine that your marine biology training enables you to identify it as a Reef Shark, which you know doesn’t prey on anything as large as you. Your anxiety disappears. Instead you feel excited and curious to observe the shark’s behavior.

wherever they live, travel, hike, swim, fish, dive, kayak, or trek, they risk being confronted by something capable of doing them in with tooth, fang, claw, jaw, or stinger, and yet there is no public clamor to eradicate any animal because of the peril it poses to the human population. australians have learned to coexist in relative peace with nearly everything, and when occasionally a human life is lost to an animal, the public usually reacts philosophically.

I was born the 26th of December. . . Arrive by dint of perseverance, but step by step. . . Tenancy to exaggerate the importance of earthly life. Avaricious of self. Constant in their affections and their hatreds. . . Yes, the Capricorn is a beast of solitude. Slow, steady, and persevering. Lives on several levels at once. Thinks in circles. Fascinated by death. Ever climbing, climbing. In search of the edelweiss, presumably. Or could it be immortelle? Knows no mother. Only "the mothers". Laughs little and usually on the wrong side of the face. . . Speaks truthfully instead of kindly. Metaphysics, abstractions, electromagnetic displays. Dives to the depths. Sees stars, comets, and asteroids where others see only moles, warts, and pimples. Feeds on himself when tired of playing the man-eating shark. A paranoiac. An ambulatory paranoiac. But constant in his affections - and his hatreds. Ouais!

When your heart is broken you plant seeds in the cracks and you pray for rain. And you teach your sons and daughters   .there are sharks in the water but the only way to survive is to breathe deep and dive.  

New Rule: Getting up close and personal with sharks doesn't make you a wildlife enthusiast--it makes you dinner. An Austrian tourist wanted to get "face-to-face" with sharks, so he went diving in waters baited with bloody fish parts. And he got ate. A friend was asked to describe the man. He needed only two words: "Good chum.

Bullock, Sam, died at the age of one-twelve. They’d been married five years. She was forty-six.” “Isn’t that romantic?” “Heart-tugging. First husband was younger, a callow seventy-three to her twenty-two.” “Wealthy?” “Was—not Sam Bullock wealthy, but well-stocked. Got eaten by a shark.” “Step off.” “Seriously. Scuba diving out in the Great Barrier Reef. He was eighty-eight. And this shark cruises along and chomp, chomp.” She gave Eve a thoughtful look. “Ending as shark snacks is in my top-ten list of ways I don’t want to go out. How about you?” “It may rank as number one, now that I’ve considered it a possibility. Any hint of foul play?” “They weren’t able to interview the shark, but it was put down as death by misadventure.

When your heart is broken you plant seeds in the cracks and you pray for rain. And you teach your sons and daughters there are sharks in the water but the only way to survive is to breathe deep and dive.

Waterhouse’s new roommate is out of town just now, but by glancing over his personal effects, Waterhouse estimates that he is paddling a black kayak from Australia to Yokosuka Naval Base, where he will slip on board a battleship and silently kill its entire crew with his bare hands before doing an Olympic-qualifying dive into the bay, punching out a few sharks, climbing back into his kayak and paddling back to Australia for a beer.

As he watched this beautiful, still world, Louie played with a thought that had come to him before. He had thought it as he had watched hunting seabirds, marveling at their ability to adjust their dives to compensate for the refraction of light in water. He had thought it as he had considered the pleasing geometry of the sharks, their gradation of color, their slide through the sea. He even recalled the thought coming to him in his youth, when he had lain on the roof of the cabin in the Cahuilla Indian Reservation, looking up from Zane Grey to watch night settling over the earth. Such beauty, he thought, was too perfect to have come about by mere chance. That day in the center of the Pacific was, to him, a gift crafted deliberately, compassionately, for him and Phil. Joyful and grateful in the midst of slow dying, the two men bathed in that day until sunset brought it, and their time in the doldrums, to an end.

At three hundred feet, we are profoundly changed. The pressure at these depths is nine times that of the surface. The organs collapse. The heart beats at a quarter of its normal rate, slower than the rate of a person in a coma. Senses disappear. The brain enters a dream state. At six hundred feet down, the ocean’s pressure—some eighteen times that of the surface—is too extreme for most human bodies to withstand. Few freedivers have ever attempted dives to this depth; fewer have survived. Where humans can’t go, other animals can. Sharks, which can dive below six hundred and fifty feet, and much deeper, rely on senses beyond the ones we know. Among them is magnetoreception, an attunement to the magnetic pulses of the Earth’s molten core. Research suggests that humans have this ability and likely used it to navigate across the oceans and trackless deserts for thousands of years. Eight hundred feet down appears to be the absolute limit of the human body.

As the day heats up, Peter convinces me to put down my French book and jump in the pool with him. The pool is crowded with little kids, no one as old as us. Steve Bledell has a pool at his house, but I wanted to come here, for old times’ sake. “Don’t you dare dunk me,” I warn. Peter starts circling me like a shark, coming closer and closer. “I’m serious!” He makes a dive for me and grabs me by the waist, but he doesn’t dunk me; he kisses me. His skin is cool and smooth against mine; so are his lips. I push him away and whisper, “Don’t kiss me--there are kids around!” “So?” “So nobody wants to see teenagers kissing in the pool where kids are trying to play. It isn’t right.” I know I sound like a priss, but I don’t care. When I was little, and there were teenagers horsing around in the pool, I always felt nervous to go in, because it was like the pool was theirs. Peter bursts out laughing. “You’re funny, Covey.” Swimming sideways, he says, “It isn’t right,” and then starts laughing again.

They dived into the ocean of shadow and smog, adding to it with the fumes of their own aircraft. The goggles were useless now, but Jacob kept them on, in case there might be some break in the murky pool. It was fitting that the Worldwaker had passed through there, with the shark emblem painted on brightly. In those deep waters it could not be seen. It almost felt like it had lured them in. The dolphins do not hunt the sharks.

We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like “I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive. . . .” And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas. And a voice was screaming: “Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?” Then it was quiet again. My attorney had taken his shirt off and was pouring beer on his chest, to facilitate the tanning process. “What the hell are you yelling about?” he muttered, staring up at the sun with his eyes closed and covered with wraparound Spanish sunglasses. I hit the brakes and aimed the Great Red Shark toward the shoulder of the highway. No point mentioning those bats, I thought. The poor bastard will see them soon enough.

I’ve never understood the phenomenon, but everyone absolutely loses their minds whenever they see someone pull out a T-shirt gun. It’s a universal constant that transcends all cultural divides: Republicans, Democrats, rich, poor, glassblowers, Inuit Indians, Motown nostalgia acts: They all pay a fortune for their tickets and sit nicely dressed and civilized. Then the dudes with the T-shirt guns come out and everyone gets that crazy red demon glow in their eyes, ready to tear arms out of their sockets and dive off balconies for three dollars of cotton. On the other end, the guys with the guns are in complete control of the crowd and get a God complex, teasing them, faking shots and making thousands of screaming loons sway left and right with their slightest move. And yet nobody but me can see the potential, like the next time the rest of the world is giving America a bunch of shit, our president just goes before the UN General Assembly and busts out a T-shirt gun. Problem fucking solved.

1944 - Exploring London in wartime, a city with stiff upper lip, gritted teeth, clenched fists, makes you realize that Paris is a bit of whore. Every day and every night for weeks now, London has been bleeding and hiding its wounds with impressive dignity. A ‘don’t show off’ attitude prevails. From time to time a sputtering doodle-bug (a VI) shatters the torpor of the overcast sky. One second, sometimes two ... at most three ... of silence. Visualizing that fat cigar with shark fins as it stops dead, sways, idiotically tips over, then goes into a vertical dive. And explodes. Usually it’s an entire building that’s destroyed. Apparently the Civil Defense rescue teams observe a very strict rule of discretion and restraint. You never see any panic. In this impassive city detachment is the expression of panic.

Dan who was cringing wide-eyed against the rusty, barnacle encrusted side of the wreck. “What’s wrong now?” I wondered. A large menacing shadow passed over me. I looked up to see the pale belly of a giant shark. It slowly passed over me like the Imperial Star Destroyer in the opening scene of Star Wars. Dan and I cowered out of sight in the rusting derelict, temporarily safe from the monster shark. From the look of its saucer-sized black eyes and triangular-shaped razor teeth, I guessed the shark was a rare species of sharpimus toothimus gigantus. We were trapped, reduced to nervously monitoring our dwindling air supply while we waited for the fearsome shark to leave. Finally, the sea monster left and we warily swam to the surface and scrambled onto the deck of our barge. We ordered an immediate to return to port and hoped the shark didn’t sink our vessel on the way back. Once we were safe on dry land, we celebrated our survival by drinking twenty-five cent Lone Star beers and rehashing our adventure. Our entire dive had been spent eluding sea monsters; it was a good day.

Fast-forward about twenty years: I was in Bora Bora on vacation. I was scuba diving, and thirty or so lemon sharks started hovering around me in the water. My first thought was, Wow, this is a lot more terrifying up close and personal than it is on Discovery Channel Shark Week. My next thought was, What do I do? I know the name lemon shark sounds sweet, but look it up. They are the ugliest, most terrifying sharks, and they get up to about ten feet long. That’s big enough to take off your head in a single bite. I hadn’t signed up for a shark encounter. In fact, they didn’t tell us much about what to expect down there, and there was no training session. It was more like, “Are you certified? Okay, just jump in.” After several minutes of being stalked by this pack of predators, I was overcome by a calmness. I remember feeling the sharks brush past my head and knock into my back. I couldn’t keep my eye on all of them--they were everywhere--so I just let it be. They didn’t bother me, and I didn’t bother them. Instead, the thing that freaked me out on the dive was a harmless little suckerfish that decided to hang out in my face. Every time I turned around, he was there, stalking me.

That knife! It looks similar to a machete-like weapon used in India- the Kukri! He's using it to chop leeks, ginger and some herbs... Which he's tossing into a pot of rich chicken stock!" "Ah! Now he's grinding his spices!" Cross! "What?! He's crossing different implements in every step of his recipe?! Can he even do that?!" "I recognize that mortar and pestle. It's the kind they use in India to grind spices." "Oh gosh... I can already smell the fragrance from here!" He clearly knows just how much to grind each spice... ... and to toast each in a little oil to really bring out its fragrance! "Ah, I see! What he has steaming on that other burner is shark fin!" "From Indian cuisine, we dive straight into something very Chinese! Cross! Saiba x Mò Liú Zhâo!" "What the heck? He's stroking the fin... ... quickly running the claws along its grain!" Ah! I see what he's doing! Shark fin by itself is flavorless. Even in true Chinese cuisine... ...it's simmered in Paitan stock or oyster sauce first to give it a stronger, more concentrated umami punch. But by using those claws, he can't skip that step... ... and directly infuse the fin with umami flavor compounds! "Saiba... Cross..." "Aaaah! That implement! I recognize that one! Eishi Tsukasa!" Tsukasa Senpai's Super-Sized Grater-Sword! "He took a huge lump of butter... ... and is grating it down into shavings at unbelievable speed!"

The first buddy pair enters the deep end of the pool and begins buddy breathing. The games begin when, like a hungry shark, an instructor menacingly stalks the two trainees. Suddenly, the instructor darts forward, grabs the snorkel, and tosses it about ten feet away where it slowly sinks to the bottom. It is the duty of the last person to have taken a breath, to retrieve the snorkel. As the swimmer dives ten feet deep to recover the snorkel, his buddy floats motionless, his face underwater, holding his breath, patiently conserving oxygen. The swimmer returns with the snorkel and hands it to his buddy, but before his teammate can grab it and breathe, the instructor sadistically snatches the snorkel and again tosses it away. The swimmer, still holding his breath, dives to get the snorkel, but the instructor grabs his facemask and floods it with pool water. The swimmer has a choice. He can clear his mask of water, by blowing valuable air into it through his nose, or he can continue to swim with his mask full of water blurring his vision. The swimmer makes the right decision and retrieves the snorkel. All this time both trainees are holding their breath, battling the urge to surface and suck in a lung full of sweet fresh air. With lungs burning and vision dimming, the swimmer hands the snorkel to his buddy. After taking only two breaths, his buddy returns the snorkel and, finally the instructor allows the swimmer to breathe his two breaths. While the trainees try to breathe, instructors splash water into foam around them while screaming insults. Despite the distractions, the snorkel travels back and forth between the trainees until once again, an instructor snatches it, tosses it across the pool, and floods both students’ masks. This harassment continues until the instructor is satisfied with the trainees’ performance.

It's basty!" "There's definitely a soup underneath the crust. I see carrots. Gingko nuts. Mushrooms. And... Shark fin! Simmered until it's falling apart!" Aah! It's all too much! I-I don't care if I burn my mouth... I want to dive in right now! Mm! Mmmm! UWAAAAH! "Incredible! The shark fin melts into a soft wave of warm umami goodness on the tongue... ...with the crispy piecrust providing a delectably crunchy contrast!" "Mmm... this piecrust shows all the signs of the swordsmanship he stole from Eishi Tsukasa too." Instead of melting warm butter to mix into the flour, he grated cold butter into granules and blended them... ... to form small lumps that then became airy layers during the baking, making the crust crispier and lighter. A light, airy crust like that soaks up the broth, making it the perfect complement to this dish! "Judge Ohizumi, what's that "basty" thing you were talking about?" "It's a dish in a certain style of cooking that's preserved for centuries in Nagasaki- Shippoku cuisine." "Shippoku cuisine?" Centuries ago, when Japan was still closed off from the rest of the world, only the island of Dejima in Nagasaki was permitted to trade with the West. There, a new style of cooking that fused Japanese, Chinese and Western foods was born- Shippoku cuisine! One of its signature dishes is Basty, which is a soup covered with a lattice piecrust. *It's widely assumed that Basty originated from the Portuguese word "Pasta."* "Shippoku cuisine is already a hybrid of many vastly different cooking styles, making it a perfect choice for this theme!" "The lattice piecrust is French. Under it is a wonderfully savory Chinese shark fin soup. And the soup's rich chicken broth and the vegetables in it have all been thoroughly infused with powerfully aromatic spices... ... using distinctively Indian spice blends and techniques!" "Hm? Wait a minute. There's more than just shark fin and vegetables in this soup. This looks just like an Italian ravioli! I wonder what's in it? ?!" "Holy crap, look at it stretch!" "What is that?! Mozzarella?! A mochi pouch?!" "Nope! Neither! That's Dondurma. Or as some people call it... ... Turkish ice cream. A major ingredient in Dondurma is salep, a flour made from the root of certain orchids. It gives the dish a thick, sticky texture. The moist chewiness of ravioli pasta melds together with the sticky gumminess of the Dondurma... ... making for an addictively thick and chewy texture!

An article in this month’s National Geographic magazine quotes a scientist referring to the “undistractibility” of these animals on their journeys. “An arctic tern on its way from Tierra del Fuego to Alaska, for instance, will ignore a nice smelly herring offered from a bird-watcher’s boat in Monterey Bay. Local gulls will dive voraciously for such handouts, while the tern flies on. Why?” The article’s author, David Quammen, attempts an answer, saying “the arctic tern resists distraction because it is driven at that moment by an instinctive sense of something we humans find admirable: larger purpose.” In the same article, biologist Hugh Dingle notes that these migratory patterns reveal five shared characteristics: the journeys take the animals outside their natural habitat; they follow a straight path and do not zigzag; they involve advance preparation, such as overfeeding; they require careful allocations of energy; and finally, “migrating animals maintain a fervid attentiveness to the greater mission, which keeps them undistracted by temptations and undeterred by challenges that would turn other animals aside.” In other words, they are pilgrims with a purpose. In the case of the arctic tern, whose journey is 28,000 miles, “it senses it can eat later.” It can rest later. It can mate later. Its implacable focus is the journey; its singular intent is arrival. Elephants, snakes, sea snakes, sea turtles, myriad species of birds, butterflies, whales, dolphins, bison, bees, insects, antelopes, wildebeests, eels, great white sharks, tree frogs, dragon flies, crabs, Pacific blue tuna, bats, and even microorganisms – all of them have distinct migratory patterns, and all of them congregate in a special place, even if, as individuals, they have never been there before. -Hamza Yusuf on the Hajj of Community

DON’T forget, Frank, any treasure we find will be divided fifty-fifty!” Blond, seventeen-year-old Joe Hardy grinned. He checked his skin-diving gear and slid, flippers first, over the gunwale of their motorboat. “I’ll settle for a pot of gold,” retorted Frank. He was similarly attired in trunks, air tank, and face mask, and carried a shark knife. The boys had anchored their boat, the Sleuth, off a secluded area of dunes, which ran beneath a low, rocky promontory called Pirates’ Hill. “Here goes!” said Frank as he plunged into the cool waters of the Atlantic. Together, the Hardys swam toward the bottom.

saved your life? What happened?’ ‘We were staying in Florida and had taken a small boat out to enjoy the ocean,’ said John. ‘It was a warm and sunny day, so being young and reckless I took off my shirt and dived into the water for a swim. I didn’t see the shark until it was too late. It took my leg and dragged me under the water. It happened so suddenly I didn’t understand what was going on. All I knew was the pain was unbearable. When it let go I realised what had happened, but I was losing a lot of blood and was struggling to get back to the boat. Then it turned and came back for a second bite. Memphis was in the water beside me by the time the shark arrived. He sunk his knife deep into the creature’s nose and it retreated to a safe distance for a moment. In those few seconds Memphis was able to drag me back to the boat and one of the crew helped to get me back on board. Then the shark moved in again, but Memphis was an immensely powerful man and as it struck he landed a heavy blow on the side of the creature’s head. It didn’t come back for another try.’ ‘I’m surprised you could ever get back on a boat after that,’ said Sophie. ‘If that happened to me I wouldn’t even go back on

Embark on an extraordinary journey in the enchanting realm of Zanzibar, where life unfolds as a captivating adventure waiting to be embraced. Dive into the azure waters and share a moment with turtles, whale sharks, and even the famous Nemo. Transport yourself to the ancient past as you sail the seas on a traditional dhow boat, channeling the spirit of sailors from two millennia ago.

Using the satellite phone connection, I finally reached Croc One. The captain, Kris, was in tears. I finally tracked down John Stainton, and he assured me that he hadn’t left Steve’s side. “I’ve got a charter plane coming,” John said. “I’ll get him home, Terri.” I asked about Steve’s personal effects. Steve had had on his khakis and wet-suit boots while he was diving, but because he had no jewelry or anything of value, the medical examiner had destroyed all his clothing. I was devastated. It’s completely unpredictable what one will hold dear in a time of grief, particularly in the case of an accident. I remember thinking, I’ve got to sit down with the powers that be and change these regulations. The family should decide what should be destroyed and what should be kept. I needed to focus on something other than losing Steve. That fact was just too hard to get my head around. As John arranged to bring Steve home, the media pressure steadily increased. I told Wes I wanted to go meet the plane, but that I wouldn’t take the kids. This was my time to be with my soul mate, and I needed to do it on my own. I headed out with a police escort. The Queensland police were considerate and professional, and an officer named Annie was personally assigned to make sure the overwhelming media attention did not interfere with my private moment to say good-bye to Steve. Wes accompanied me. It was night. As the seaplane came in, I recognized it as the same one that had taken Steve on many South Pacific adventures, in search of sea snakes, crested iguanas, or sharks. The ranks of police stood at attention. Many of them had met Steve previously. Once again, I was overwhelmed to see the looks of grief on their faces. The plane landed, and I had a moment to sit with Steve on my own. It was a bit of an effort to clamber up into the back of the plane. A simple wooden casket rested inside, still secured. I knew that who Steve was, his spirit and his soul, were no longer there, but it was strange how I couldn’t cry. I sat down and leaned my head against the wooden box that held his body and felt such strange peace. In some way, we were together again.

Thailand is a tropical getaway for the hedonist and the hermit, the prince and the pauper. This paradise offers a varied menu: playing in the gentle surf of Ko Lipe, diving with whale sharks in Ko Tao, scaling the sea cliffs of Krabi, kiteboarding in Hua Hin, partying on Ko Phi- Phi, recuperating at a health resort in Ko Samui and feasting on the beach wherever sand meets sea.

Most only dare tread the waters of insanity at night as they lie dreaming. Cowards. Dive deep into your psychopathy. Let loose the demons of delusion and know, in the end, when they finally devour you, you swam with sharks.

I’m sorry I didn’t practice scuba diving more. I’m sorry I fell short. It should have been me, not you. Not you, who had so much to give the

Sharks are more "natural" than life rafts-at least according to vulgar understanding-but, if forced to dive off a sinking ship and swim for my life, I'd rather meet a life raft than a shark! I daresay that radical environmentalists would share this view if the choice were actually forced upon them.2

In a flash, the helicopter began a corkscrew dive, coming directly for them. Decker frantically pushed himself to his feet and took off on a dead run.

If you do come face to face with one of our ocean friends,' continued the dive instructor, 'then just stay where you are, don't back away. If it comes toward you, then swim toward it. He'll probably get the message.' 'Oh yeah,' said Ruby. 'And what message is that?' 'That you aren't lunch - lunch usually swims in the other direction,' said the dive instructor with a wink. 'And what if this shark ain't so smart?' asked Ruby. 'What then?' 'Then,' said the dive master, 'it will probably try to explore you with its teeth - that's how they check things out, only you don't really want them to do so as it could mean waving bye-bye to an arm or a leg.' 'Well, I kinda need my arms for waving - my legs sorta tend to come in handy too,' said Ruby.

The two friends were whispering in the dark of the night, and the steady waves of the sea were covering their voices from the rest of the crew. “Look, our grandfathers had horrible incidents, some of them died, some of them faced sharks and survived, no matter what happened to them, they were always strong enough to return to the sea,” said Fahad.

What was this future we were flailing toward, with its fires and floods? Its rolling blackouts and tornadoes? Where was the reboot on this? The plot twist, the science fiction dream turned real scientific breakthrough, that would make everything okay? Where were the venture capitalists with their cold fusion and their wind farms? Their plastic-digesting bacteria? Their CRISPR-driven vaccination platforms? Their cancer-curing pills? Were we all really just going to keep fumbling along through these storms of the centuries of the weeks? What would it look like when the power went out for the last time? When there was no one left to put the poles and wires back up? All those empty unlit rooms, all the rats and pigeons starving, and the subway tunnels full of water, a new species of blind shark taking dominion of the thousands of miles of man-made sea caves, reefs in the stalled cars whose windows had shattered under the pressure of all that water, and the broken glass worn smooth by time, and all the subway stairs become oyster beds, anemone tendrils adrift in the current—all those gorgeous impossible colors, a true new Eden, except of course that it would all be happening in absolute darkness, with nobody there to bear it witness, to register the beauty and terror of nature repairing itself. Who would rub the condensation from his dive mask and stare stupefied? Who would catch the silver gleam of scale or white teeth full of bloody shredded spoil in a dive-rated flashlight’s sun-bright beam? I got out of the pool, dried off, went downstairs, took a quick rinse, drank some water, and got into bed, whereupon I fell fast asleep and into uneasy chlorine dreams.

Now that that’s out of the way…” I threw an arm around his shoulders and steered him toward the couch. “Let’s talk about how we’ll make this a stag party you’ll never forget. I’m thinking tigers, tattoos…” “No.” I brushed off the buzzkill. “Actually, how do you feel about cage diving with sharks? We can fly to South Africa for the weekend…

Slave ships changed ecosystems. Blue-green tiger sharks, with stripes along their sides, took to the taste of human bodies. Tiger sharks will eat anything. Some people chose that end over the hell ship, diving with the belief that the afterlife would restore them to belonging and, better yet, home. There was good reason to escape life. The Middle Passage was a terrible journey through a blue netherworld. I have wondered about the ones who leaped, or were thrown to their deaths, or after death, overboard, ravaged bodies with hollowed eyes flying off the deck, through the air, into ocean. What did they see in all that blue?