For the first two weeks of March I was in Mexico with my husband, two environmental lawyers from Florida (dear old friends), two wildlife biologists, a forestry consultant, a photographer, and a civil engineer. And, as if that doesn’t sound enough like the intro to Gilligan’s Island, we spent several days together on a yacht (fortunately, no storms and no getting stranded on a desert island).
Our adventures took us up, down, and around the Gulf of California—known also, politically incorrectly but popularly, as the Sea of Cortez—on a trip called “Ultimate Whales.” The first day’s encounter, though, was with a shark.
What I most remember about getting into the water with a whale shark is . . . hyperventilating! not the best response when you’re breathing through a snorkel. Fortunately, we had two excellent guides who would not let us miss a single spot.
Near the end of this video, I inserted a line of text: “I stay for as long as I can, but of course the shark outswims me.” In the unedited version (which includes a great deal of footage showing blank ocean and the occasional flash of wetsuit or flipper, because I had the camera turned backward), you’ll hear me say to the guide, “I need to rest.” I was, actually, nearly overwhelmed with anxiety as I climbed out of the ocean and back into the boat. The last time I snorkeled, I was in the midst of a physical crisis brought on by a lupus flare and a severe thyroid hormone deficiency; I could not climb the ladder into the boat. I could barely get out of my wetsuit for weakness and pain. The fatigue and weariness that overcame me lasted for weeks. So this time, when I felt the beginnings of muscle fatigue and quickened breathing, in the water with the whale shark, I didn’t know whether I would be able to get back in the boat; once in the boat, I didn’t know whether I would be able to do much of anything for the rest of that day and the days to follow.
The happy ending is that a little rest restored me to “normal.” I even went snorkeling again later that day, this time with sea lions. Here’s a joyous ten seconds of that encounter.
I don’t know how comprehensively I’ll be able to write about the rest of this trip, in the short term. Sometime in the next few months I might get an essay published—or, more honestly, I will get an essay finished and it might be many more months before it gets published somewhere. But I do plan to share some videos and photos here, and hopefully share more of the YouTube playlist that my husband and I are building.
Adding snorkeling to my growing list of “things I can do again”. It’s been a good month.