Testing the Limits

As part of my spring break I went to Santa Cruz, and on one of those days we took a panga boat out just beyond the harbor and slowed the motor down to a rumble.  Then the captain threw a pair of old gym sneakers in the water and instantly there were Galapagos sharks buzzing around getting at the shoes.  Any guesses as to why this erratic behavior?  Think about the location, the island's main harbor for boat trafficking which thus includes fishing boats.  Bingo!  The fishermen clean their fish here and throw leftovers overboard where the sharks have learned from repetition to listen to the sound of the motor, watch the boat slow down, wait for droppings over the side, and CHOMP!  These Galapagos sharks look similar to bull sharks and were about 6-7 ft long and say mmm 10 of them in total.  These are some waters you don't want to swim in.  After seeing the aggressive behavior of these guys, we hopped over to a place called Shark Channel which hosts some much more tranquil and lackadaisical white tip reef sharks.  These guys were about 5.5-6 ft in length and say in total 15 that were hanging around the mouth of this narrow channel.  Now this was awesome, going face-to-face and having sharks swim up behind me and swim around me.  At one point my guide grabbed me and took me to where a sea turtle was chillin w/ some sleeping sharks under the rocks, and then the captain dragged me over to a shy but persistent octopus hiding under and holding on to the thick shells of his last couple of meals despite how hard we tried to pry away the shells.  A little while later we boarded the boat and began removing our snorkel equipment.  As everyone was putting their gear away, a humongous sea turtle floated up out of no where.  Before much could be said, I threw back on my goggles and jumped over board in search of this mammoth creature.  Scared by all the noise, the turtle disappeared.  So I returned back to the panga boat but was keeping hawk eyes out for the moment the turtle would have to surface for air.  That moment didn't take too long and I made a 2nd escape from the boat.  This time I was in luck, executing a more sly approach while swimming to the turtle keeping my disturbance to a minimum and then succeeded in getting snapshots.  Once again I reboarded the boat to be taken to our last cite of the day.  As everyone was disembarking, the captain held me back and the 2 of us stayed on board until the others were all off.  We proceeded to return back to the place where we saw the sea turtle, and snorkeled some more spotting 3 sea turtles and 2 marble rays.  So half an hour later we decided to get back to the rest of the group before our absences were noted and as we began pulling the anchor up it got stuck.  There was a slight entanglement of the anchor line in the props, so the captain jumped in the water for a better look as I lifted up the motor.  It was a quick fix and we raced back to where we dropped the others off.  As the captain pulled up to the dock, I lept off, tied the boat up to a makeshift cleat, and we took off towards the trees.  The was a bizarre site, us running all on ankle-breaking rocks, me in my bathing suit and sneakers alongside a guy who's barefoot in his underwear.  After 15 minutes of running on rocks through shrubs and a muddy kind of sediment, we caught up to a cliff where the group was swimming in a peaceful lagoon w/ rock ledges on either side.  But the excitement wasn't over yet, the captain again dragged me to a rock about 33 ft up on the cliff and persuaded me to jump off.  He did it flawlessly, and the students below were cheering me on with a "sweet Caroline bum bum buh".  That sealed the deal and I took a leap of faith as far out as I could from the cliff, past the death defying rocks below me.  I plunged into the clear translucent water and bobbled to the surface like a cork with only a slight sting on my butt.  So a little bit of bragging rights here as I was the first (really second to the captain, but hey he's a local) and one of the only ones from everyone there to jump at that height.  One time wasn't enough so the captain then took me to another rock even higher!  This one at say 37ish ft took a longer time for motivation, but pressured by the call that we would be leaving soon and the fact that the rock I was standing on was pretty hot, once again I found myself plummeting downward making sure to point my toes and keep my surface area to a minimum (aka staying pretty straight which helps with the impact into the water).  The stinging itself wasn't as bad on the 2nd jump since my technique was better, but I also got the experience of some unwanted seawater in places it didn't need to be.  If you've every had a gnarly wipeout from surfing and managed to get seawater all the way up your butt crack then you know about the sensation that I'm talking about.While the others preferred to keep to the shallows, the thrill and rush of jumping off a cliff is incredible!  On the other hand this got me some respect from the guides haha.