Sharkkkks

Hauraki Gulf, 2021

We leave the rocky shore, swim out into the gulf. The visibility is mediocre. The shallows are colored a dull blue with hints of mustard in every particle of matter, in every chopped-up piece of kelp flailing in the current. We continue swimming, undeterred. Two or three hundred meters from shore the visibility clears: a wide, flat rock appears below. A ball of baitfish hover, shiver away, return. We pause. Another ball of baitfish moves in, spins. More fish than we’ve ever seen in one spot. Dozens. Hundreds. Blue maomao. Pipefish. We take turns diving. An eagle ray glides in, soars over the kelp ledge at the edge of the reef. At eight or nine meters, the white rock turns to weed line, to thick and growing kelp, decorating the drop off, the slope towards sandy bottom.

The sun is out; the water is a lovely, bright blue. It’s warm, almost twenty degrees. We take our hoods off, or not. Our gloves protect us from kina spines more than cold. Our suits give us endless time now, make us feel we could stay out here forever. We fall into the spell of diving, arrowing down to the ledge and back, looking for larger fish. The small fish swim around us, quivering, delicate herds, attuned to every gesture. The calmer we are, the closer in they come. We slice into kina, break them in half, into quarters, let them fall to the seafloor. The little baitfish come all the way up the water column, the falling food and the flash of our knives drawing them in. They break out of formation, moving in confident little clusters, tasting the end of Luke’s spear.

I’m still learning to see underwater. The snapper and john dory evade my vision, but I know they’re there because he catches them even when I drop and see nothing. I sight the pilot snapper, the dinosaurs, the ones so big that once we’re out of the water we negotiate over their actual size. This big, do you think? Our arms out wide. Maybe a little less. How can we be sure? We don’t shoot them. They set the smaller, tastier snapper at ease, the ones well within limits. I see silver drummers, leatherjackets, blue maomao, and blue cod: my friends from the south! I see parore, red moki, spotties and if I’m lucky and quiet and calm, tentacles extending from small rocky caves.

I’m breathing up on the surface, preparing for a dive. Luke is close to me in the water. I hardly realize; I’m relaxed, half-asleep. He reaches out, places one hand on my arm. The gesture feels universal but probably isn’t. I look under, behind. A long, copper, torpedo shape passes on my left. Bronze whaler. Big. Eight feet? It’s the first shark I’ve seen in these waters. I’m calm, unafraid. Before I know it, the shark passes, is gone. Only the impression of sleek copper remains. I’m elated. My first shark! Less calm now in my excitement at having passed a milestone. We high five. I breathe up again, take a dive, forget about the shark, lose myself to the swarms of fish.

At some point early on we see another, smaller shark, less docile, less chill. Arriving fast to the rock below and leaving again.

We’re waiting for them, expecting them, and still their arrival is a marvel: kingfish moving in on the incoming current. We see juveniles first, hesitant ones. They come in briefly to check us out and leave again. The next school is larger, denser. I have no trouble seeing Kingfish. I see so many I think I have a special talent for it. I see the trailing loners, the small groups, the ones so big I mistake them for a shark circling below. For hours we dive, and kingfish come in. They swim over our shallow rock and back out over the reef. They circle, swarm, break away, return. We see dozens, hundreds. The tide comes in, goes slack, falls.

He aims, misses, warming up. The sooner we take one, the sooner we end the dive, get our lovely fish on ice. I wonder if he misses on purpose, appeasing the part of himself that likes the depths more than the hunt and winning. He shoots one and it’s a good shot, but the flapper doesn’t engage. The fish gets off, disappears. He’s disappointed, hates injuring fish.  

It’s time for a tea break. We remove our weighted belts, drop them on the float. Pour tea from our thermos. We don’t eat the hardboiled eggs with soy sauce or the sea-saturated bananas — it’s only been a couple of hours. We put our belts back on, our masks. The soapy water mix has leaked everywhere: no more homemade anti-fog. His fogs up; mine isn’t so bad. I remember swimming hard in Tonga, mask fogging, snorkel filling with water, legs burning. I think, treading water here over the reef is a piece of cake.

I’m head down in the water, looking when a school of kingfish arrive. There are dozens of them. They swarm the rock, the baitfish shivering below. They school around us, circling. Instead of passing, they arc back in. He’d told me of a school of kings that swarmed him once like a hurricane, a tunnel. This is that, I think. It’s happening to me now. Through my snorkel, I say, Kings, kings, kings! But his head isn’t in the water. He’s frustrated, trying to clear his fogged mask. He doesn’t realise! I think. He can’t hear the gravity in my muffled shouts. I break away from the vision to take my head out of the water, my snorkel out of my mouth. Luke! Kings! Look! Not just any, not just one, not just five or ten. Fifty, sixty. Finally, he gets it, but he can only see so much. Not well enough to take a shot. The fish stay for the longest time, shot after good shot sailing by and coming back around again. It’s a wonder just to watch them: long, yellow-tailed torpedoes schooling off. The quiet, the movement, the colour, clears my mind. Hours pass by without my realising. Eventually, they leave.  

I offer my mask to him. I want him to get his kingfish, the first for the summer. Your mask is terrible! I say, once it’s on, fogging so much worse than mine. Depth is almost impossible to gage — I can barely see the bottom. Within minutes another school arrives. He takes a shot. It’s his. Again, the flapper doesn’t engage, the spear isn’t far enough through, but he hangs on, pushes the spear through; pulls in the fish and knifes him. Puts him out quickly. As soon as he shoots the fish, I take my knife out. I’m ready. I expect one of those sharks to arrive any minute but neither does. He brings in the fish, bleeds him, has him in the float before I know it.

We switch masks. He feels sorry for me constantly taking it off and spitting in it. I want him to get his fish but once he has it, I’m happy to have my vision back and his mask miraculously stays clear.

He shoots a john dory, brings him up, has me listen to the fish’s weird, deep grunts that seem to come from another place in the ocean than the fish gasping on the end of the spear. He knifes him and hands him to me to listen better, but I quickly swim him to the float, afraid to be caught with a fish by one of our bronzed friends. I don’t know how much time passes. Twenty minutes, a half hour. We dive. Two huge snapper show up, our Jurassic friends. I start having trouble with an air-bubble in my sinuses, pressing behind my teeth. I dive down a few meters and wait for it to clear. It frustrates me, my focus wavers. He says we’d better get the kingfish in, get him on ice. We take our last dives in turns. I dive and trail the larger snapper — Dinosaur we call him. The smaller shark takes me by surprise, swimming in fast on my right and away. There’s nothing bronze about him down near the ocean floor; he’s a dark, grey-blue, long, and sleek, like a missile. I see him and head for the surface with measured kicks. At the surface Luke says, making friends?

I swim to the float boat, try to pull up the anchor. It’s stuck. I dive to check and can’t get halfway down before I need to turn back, hardly any breath.

He spots a jack mackerel, decides to gut the john dory to bring him in. I say, Are you sure you want to gut the fish with that shark around? He passes me the speargun, reaches into the float boat, says, I won’t put the fish in the water. Within seconds, he’s got the fish in the water and swims off a few feet to pull out its insides. I don’t know it yet, but his reaching into the float sends the kingfish blood pooling in the bottom spilling into the water. Within seconds the eight-foot shark from earlier in the day is back, gunning straight towards him at the surface. Luke! Shark! I say, still quite calm. My tone says, See?

His hood is down. If it weren’t, he’s far enough away he might not hear. He swims to our little boat, too small to hold us, throws the john dory back in. I pass him the speargun, draw out my knife. It’s three and a half inches long, maybe four, serrated, with rust spots and a little blue handle. We’re back-to-back. I touch the weights at his belt, his shoulder, because doing so makes me feel safer. But when I do, I don’t see as much or as far — the illusion of safety clouds my vision. I’m not yet very afraid, only startled into attention, into the action of pulling a knife, into the very present moment. I let go of his belt, his arm, trust his back is inches away from mine. I want to hang on but what good would it do?

A shark, too quickly for me to register size, comes darting in at us. Our heads are in constant motion, scanning, covering the stretch of water to either side. The shark finds the precise moment when our backs are turned, sneaks in, peels away. We catch sight of him just there, close into us or peeling away.  

We lift our heads out of the water and take out our snorkels and speak above the water — somehow, we manage this, and we keep our eyes in the water. I’m not sure how. It all happens very fast. The world is suddenly sped up, sliced into moments and blurs of colour: bronze piercing blue, white underside flashing under pale, afternoon sun.

He says something like, This fucking shark. We need to get the fuck out of here.

I still don’t feel very afraid, but my heart is racing faster than it probably ever has. There isn’t time for fear, only sight, action, reaction, no hesitation in between. Only attention drawn fiercely into the scene, the moment. There are fractions of seconds where I am able to think ahead, to envision how we will get safely away.

I say, He’ll chill out. Give it a few more minutes. Luke doesn’t think so. That’s when I feel fear start to curl in at the edges.

The shark keeps moving in, darting in faster and faster, sneaking up on us despite our persistent turning. He comes in at the surface now, circling just beyond our visibility. Later, I think, the shark can see farther than we can, knows to wait for our turned backs. The shark comes in, I wield my knife. I turn, looking for him, trying to lock eyes. I know what to do even though I don’t know why.

Again, we have our heads out of the water. The shark’s peeling in and out at us seems to happen without ceasing but still we have these above water talks, as brief as anything but still. Minutes pass: the shark does not chill out. Luke says he’ll dive and unclip from our stuck anchor. I want to suggest we just cut the line and go but don’t. At one point, treading water, I place my hand on the float boat and a spill of red enters the water, a bloom of blood. I fin quickly away from the float I’d stayed instinctually near, as though it provided some measure of safety.

He passes me the speargun and prepares to dive, breathing as calmly as he can at the surface while the shark comes in and out of our line of sight. I face the float, a few metres away, as bravely as I can, knowing soon he’ll be down there and I’ll be up here, separated by eight meters or so of blue. I am more worried for him, diving down with only a knife, intent on the task of unclipping. He is more worried about me, at the surface alone. If I’d understood, I might have been more frightened.

I face the shark or rather the blue, untarnished ocean, watching for the flash of white and copper. Luke dives; I turn and turn, breathing hard, covering 360 degrees of vision now, or trying. Moments stretch out and pass by immeasurably quickly.

I turn and see the larger shark peeling away from my backside, feel his current in the water. As he fades into the pale blue surface waters, the smaller shark crosses his path, pushes in close. Understanding comes suddenly: there are two of them. I understand that it was hard to grasp the size of the shark coming in at us because it kept changing. That each is agitated, hyped up, like the pack of wild dogs I saw in Delhi once, circling a bloodied cow.

I thrust the spear at his nose, and he barely flinches, coming closer. Water magnifies all things: perhaps he is not as close as he looks. No matter, he’s way too close for comfort. We look at each other. I do not look away.

Of course, I am afraid. More so than at any other time probably in my life and yet there is no anxiety or anticipation, no question of doing what it takes to hold the little ground I have. It’s the dominant shark you want to stand up to. The little one is sneaky, pushing in, but the eight-foot shark is the one I’d swim towards if I had more wits about me. If the whole scene wasn’t obscured by water and unfolding at the speed of light.

What did I feel in the moment? My heart was racing, trilling, hardly any downbeat, only an ongoing crescendo, symbols crashing in my chest. My breath comes hard and fast, I swallow the seawater in my snorkel — there’s no time to clear it, no real need for air. Fending off two sharks with a speargun in one hand and a knife in the other, the command central in my mind is KEEP YOUR EYES IN THE WATER. Did I feel pride? Maybe disbelief. Wonder. A what-the-fuck kind of wow.

I scan the past for clues of how I got here: My older brother showing me how to throw open a switchblade when I was ten, the glint of metal, the drawing of a very small sword. All those years of looking into deep, empty lake water, afraid even though there wasn’t anything except carp or catfish and water snakes, and freshwater salmon well out of sight. The years of acclimatising to Lake Michigan’s cold, learning the crawl and the backstroke and the butterfly and becoming a good swimmer. The study of our beloved dogs, the humane-society rescues, the dumped and straying, the left for dead. Years of people-pleasing, of coming at things sideways, of circling closer to the thing desired but never learning how to make the kill, always empathic to the prey. The airplane ride which changed it all, set me down suddenly beside the ocean. Of never really having been in serious danger, my body filled now with endless reserves, with energy meant for living. I’ve traveled a long way to be here: I can go on fighting for hours.

I feel like Crocodile Dundee and think: that fucking plane ride south! I wouldn’t even get the reference without having crossed hemispheres at eleven years old. Without those two women in their twenties hanging around at the back of the plane, relentlessly flirting with my brother, bending down to me as if to tell me a secret, saying, You’re going to have the most interesting life.

Fuck interesting! And also, fuck YES, interesting! Fuck NOT doing this. Fuck not being back-to-back fending off sharks with some babe I met last summer who came here on his own plane ride south. And also, FUCK these sharks! If ever there were a time for expletives it’s NOW. Fuck OFF, sharks! See the giant snapper swimming below? The hordes of baitfish, the kingfish schooling beyond the reef? Eat them! But they’re scavengers — another fact that comes to me later. They’re wild dogs. Big ones.  

Here’s what I’m really thinking:

SHARK. FUCK. SHARK AGAIN. GO AWAY. EYES IN THE WATER. Spinning. Turning. SHARK. FUCK. THAT WAS FAST. CLOSE. FUCK OFF, ALREADY. EAT THE LOVELY SNAPPER. Touches float, spills blood: BLOOD!? GET AWAY FROM THE BLOOD. WHERE’S LUKE? BEHIND ME. SHARK. FUCK. CHILL OUT, BRONZIE! DON’T LET HIM GET CLOSE. SHARK. FUCK. GO AWAY. Jab. EYES IN THE WATER. WE NEED TO GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE. FUCK UNCLIPPING THE LINE. CUT IT. CUT THE LINE. SHARK. FUCK. SHARK. FUCK. GO AWAY, ALREADY. Breathing hard. Legs pumping furiously. Speargun in hand. Knife in hand. Luke down below. EYES IN THE WATER. TOP SIX INCHES. White and bronze flashing to my left. SHARK. SNUCK UP ON ME. Shark moving away. Shark coming in. THERE’S TWO OF THEM. FUCK. ARE WE GOING TO HAVE TO DO THIS ALL THE WAY INTO SHORE? Pushes thought aside because it is too far in the future but also: HOW ARE WE GOING TO GET OUT OF HERE? And, I WISH WE HAD A FUCKING BOAT.

I am built for this, primed, prepared. I am confident, active, unrelenting. There is no hesitation between what is required of me and what I do. No guesswork. Only seeing and acting. Only taking up space in the water. Also, I am ill-prepared, unprimed, wired to react as prey. Later, confidence drains from my body as the adrenaline leaves me. Weak, shaken; haunted by the scene afterwards, much more so than in the moment. Not weak but used up from having fought, shaken by the stress chemicals exiting my body for days.

The moment stretches out endlessly. The last peeling away after the locking of our eyes, after the exchanging of our energies. The smaller shark pushes in and looks, jazzed on the smell of blood. I look back and hold my ground and drive the spear forward. The four of us swim in a widening, invisible bloom of blood.

He retrieves the anchor line and in seconds we are swimming away, finning furiously, not caring about splashing. I swim on my back with the gun facing behind us. I see them thrashing at the surface, churning the water white. I expect them to follow us in, that we’ll be fending them off all the way to shore. Luke is head-down, towing the float. Thirty metres later, he asks me if they’re gone. I look over the water and see their tails thrashing over whitewater in the exact spot we left them, the float trailing well behind and the surprise of nothing following us. I understand how the blood excited them, set them into a frenzy, the dinner bell ringing all around.

As we swim back, closer and closer to safety, the shallows welcome us. Waves of hilarity and relief wash over us. We yell and whoop and laugh. We are elated to be safe finally and alive. Elated to be away from them. Elated to have seen them, disbelief already streaming in. I’m proud of myself for having acted, for having stood my ground, for having fended off two sharks with as little fear as I had managed. I swim in, still clutching the spear.

He does the last of the gutting inshore, in the shallows. Adrenaline pulses through us, begins to leave. We rest on the rocks. The water works on us, the hours of relaxation and deep breathing, the excitement of a successful catch. All that blue water, those twirling balls of baitfish, the swarm of kings. I’m buoyant from happiness, delighted for my feet to hit the ground. Compelled, already, to tell the story, to write it down. And there’s so much excitement in telling. We tell the spearos going in, the ones at the shore with their catch, the people in the parking lot. I leave voice recordings for my mum and a couple of friends. On land, still suited, we hug. It’s long. It’s a relief. The last of the adrenaline drains away.

I help carry the float in, fill it with ice. I go back to camp, shower, clean my gear, feel the energy fading. I press on, the way I always do. Back at his place we tie the kingfish up by the tail to the wooden stake that holds the clothesline. Luke scales and fillets one side, I the other. He shows me how to cut in at the tail and run the knife along the spine, how to carve through the pin bones and bypass the gills. We leave the skin on. We open two beers, Kingfishers. They combat the faded adrenaline, the slow, incoming shock.

We prepare sashimi with wasabi and ginger. We prepare ceviche, fish curry. We portion and cure the rest for smoking. Luke tells the story and shares the fish with everyone we see. He hands a gang of bikers a plate of raw fish and walks away. They ask me if we caught it. I say, He caught it while I fought off the sharks. The ten-strong gang of bikers throw back their heads and laugh. They’re not sure if I’m kidding. I let them wonder.

Exhaustion creeps in. I think, we fended off two sharks for what felt like half an hour — twelve metres over a fishy ledge, beauty everywhere, danger swimming in circles at the surface, waiting for our backs to turn, the blood of kings inciting hunger — but I can’t accurately reflect on how much time passed between the big one coming in and our swimming back to shore. I open another beer, fortify myself with the blankness it brings to my mind. Something in me excelled, expanded. Something in me was ill-prepared.

A day later I go for a walk, sit on a sun-drenched boulder, listen to water washing over rocks. I talk to mama ocean. What-the-fuck? I ask her. No promises, I know, no guarantees — but really? My first encounter. My very own Hollywood scene minus the bloodshed and limbs lost. I’m afraid. I want to eliminate encounters, control outcomes. It isn’t possible, but it’s normal. Just breathe. I feel more freaked out now than after all that business in the water. On the way back, I frighten a pheasant from the long grass at the edge of the trail and nearly jump out of my skin.

Luke wants to go back out to the same spot, wants to get another kingfish. When I tell him I’m petrified, he says, you act like you lost a limb. We borrow an extra speargun. There’s no safety so I don’t load it but wield it around in the shallows. I’m jumpy, jittery, saturated with fear, heightened to the point of irrationality. Are you carrying that for protection, he asks? I nod and swim down to the kina-studded boulders below, grab a few for bait and stick them on the spear. Luke says, I don’t think they’ll be any sharks in this shallow, dear. It doesn’t set me at ease, but I’ll take the affectionate tagging on of ‘dear’ at the end.

I’m face down in the water, trying to talk myself into heading for the reef. It’s slack tide. I know he wants to get out there but he’s patient, kind. I take a drop, rest a minute on the ocean floor. I oscillate between wanting to go out and wanting to go in. Finally, I relinquish — I can’t face the chance of blood in the water, the drawing in of more sharks. Can’t face the spot yet. The stuck anchor. I swim in alone. It’s strange to leave him alone out there but staying in is his call.

I feel better instantly. By the time I’m showered and fed and back at the beach with a blanket and a book, the water is glass again, the sun a friendly yellow. I watch the float moving between the island and the reef’s edge, wondering what I’m missing, wishing I was out there.

Hours later he comes back with a trevally to try his hand at dry age curing. No sign of sharks and only a handful of juvenile kingfish. I wish I’d gone but I’m glad this day is drawing to a close. It’s the golden hour before sunset, when all the world fills with colour — the rich blue of the bay, the pohutukawa in scarlet bloom, the rocks glowing orange — right before the end. We walk over the hill, head back to prepare dinner: kingfish head curry with all the parts, aromatic and gelatinous. He eats the eyeballs, I eat the cheeks, picking flesh from the frames. Whatever happens, it’ll only make us stronger.

Ten days later, the wind and swell aren’t letting up. We’ve yet to get back in. We’ve started swimming out to the island instead, crossing the bay. We leave the beach, swim past the swimming platform and the channel. I call to the island as we draw near. I miss you, I tell it. Waves crash in response. I stand carefully on its edges, barefoot. It’s decorated with obstacles: oysters, kina, caverns, the surge pulling me up and back. We’re less armoured than on a diving day: no booties or fins, no thick suits. No masks or gloves or weights. We swim, or flail, laughing, trying to improve our strokes. I carve through the water a ways ahead just because I can — power and ease inherent in my body. This is my territory, my lineage, though I can hardly trace it, there having been too many generations of men and women with little time for water. I wonder where this line is leading. How far it will go. I look back, offshore. Sun hits the water; the sky is blue and clear for the first time in days. Small, clean waves roll in. Luke isn’t far behind. It’s time. I swim for the platform, pull myself up, dive off, try to catch the small waves in. I shower in the open, suited, in freshwater. I towel off, change discreetly or not. It’s my second swim of the day — the waterfall the first — and the second time I’ve changed in public. Probably the dozenth time this week. I’m parked in the shade anyway, and I’ve stopped caring much about all that. We sit on the grass, drinking tea out of a thermos, talking about what the years ahead might bring. It’s almost six in the evening and the sun is high in the sky, not quite golden. My skin dries quickly, my hair a bundle of curls. After a while, you ride off and I take myself home. I feel calm, prepared, reclaimed — ready for whatever is next.