When I was 12, my family was living in Panama, where my dad was a Navy Captain commanding the Communications station at Fort Amador. One day, I heard my brother and his best friend talking about a new movie that everyone was really excited to see. They said it was about a huge shark named “Jaws” terrorizing a beach town on the East Coast of the States. The theater in Balboa was showing a matinee premiere on the day it opened, so we went and joined the crowd on the street, waiting in a long line. It was a beautiful summer day in 1975. Once in our seats, I watched the opening scene with wide eyes, and I think I screamed when Jaws got her first victim. After watching the horror of the shark terrifying the beach, I buried a deep fear of the ocean in the dark recesses of my subconscious mind, unaware that it would come back in my sleep. Panama was known for having sharks at the beaches, so many of them had “shark fences,” or heavy duty wooden frames with chain link fencing that spanned the beach and were buried to the seafloor. We often swam at remote beaches when on vacation, which had no shark nets at all.
That summer, we went on a vacation to Contadora Island with our neighbors and friends and their kids. There were three families, all staying at a big beautiful villa close to the beach. We enjoyed swimming on the pristine beaches, and snorkeling along the rocky natural jetties where moray eels and colorful fish swam. There were no shark nets, but we didn’t see any sharks.
One day we hired a local boat to take us on an excursion to one of the small sand islands for collecting sea shells. Only about eight of us went, including my dad and brother, and a few others. As we were shelling on one side of the island, our friend’s littlest child, a boy who was about five, said “big fish!” and pointed to the water. Indeed, a big fish was visible in the clear, blue water surrounding the little sand spit. Then we noticed it was actually a shark. Soon we noticed it was a group of about 5 sharks circling the little island, possibly hoping we were fishermen with some scraps. Interestingly, just before we’d noticed the sharks, my mom had asked my dad to swim to the boat to get her basket so she could put her shells in it. For some reason, he said no.
My dad and brother and a few others were on a little hill on the other side of the island, which was rocky and covered with crabs. As the tide rose, they became separated from us by a little channel that grew between the two parts of the island. We called them back with urgency in our voices, and pointed to the water. They saw the sharks, and quickly waded through the knee-deep channel over to us.
Now we were all together, and focused on that little boat that brought us here, so we yelled and screamed, but the waves were loud, and the guy was fast asleep in the boat. We chucked shells at him and yelled louder, and finally he woke up, looked around, and then drew the boat very close, as he noticed the five or six sharks circling the tiny island as it slowly disappeared under the rising tide. The sun was going down and the sea became choppy and rough.
He pulled the boat as close as he could, and we waded out and quickly got on board. It was a small boat, heavy with shells, plus all of us and the boat guy. He told us kids to sit on the floor of the boat, while the adults hung on. It was a long ride, with bumpy waves and water up to the gunnel, and the sky kept getting darker. The fisherman kept turning around as he motored the boat, noticing that the sharks followed us the whole way.
After we left Panama in 1976, I had no idea that severe galeophobia had grown in my subconscious. I just knew I was deeply uncomfortable swimming in the ocean. The first time I had the nightmare, I woke in the dark suddenly, breathing heavily and shaking. In the dream it was pitch dark, and I was in a vast sea, swimming toward an unseen shore. I felt the presence of a shark pursuing me, and knew I could not outswim it. I sensed someone in the water in front of me, yelling for me to swim, and suddenly I saw that person pulled under the water by an invisible but mighty force. I treaded the water silently, thinking, “if I just still my movements, it will not notice me.” Then I saw the fin approaching quickly. I awoke just at the moment its jaws surrounded me. The dream was often the same, and it would come to me occasionally, always waking me with terror.
Over the years, the dreams came with less frequency, and altered a bit. In one dream, I was trapped in an Escher-esque maze of stairs leading every way imaginable, and whether I traversed up or down, each stairway ended at a vast expanse of ocean filled with sharks. I could never escape. The waves rose with the tide, eventually stranding me at the top of a single stair, and I was surrounded. The sharks circled closer until I was unable to escape them.
Three years after the first Jaws movie, we were living in San Diego. I would often go to the beach with my friends, but still had a crippling fear of going into the water past my waist. Even past my knees, I was shaky and terrified. My friends invited me to a sleepover one night, and we also went out for a movie. The movie was Jaws 2. I thought, “this will be okay, I’m okay with this.” So off we went, and had a great time. I laughed, because how could I be afraid of something so obviously fake? It was over-glamorized and silly. I was 15 now, and could handle it. We arranged out sleeping bags on the living room floor, eating snacks, giggling and talking. It was the days before personal electronics, so everyone told their favorite scary stories at bedtime. We finally slept, exhausted and happy.
I awoke sitting upright, the living room lights on, with everyone staring at me and saying my name, including my friend’s parents, who had been awakened. I said “what’s going on?” having no idea why everyone was staring at me. They said, “you were screaming at the top of your lungs!” Another nightmare had terrorized me. Over the years the nightmares occurred with less frequency, but once in a while I'd have the same dream. Dark water, nowhere to go, and a shark coming for me.
More than forty years later, I had an opportunity to do something which cured my intense shark phobia. One of my best friends happened to marry the captain of a sport fishing boat in San Diego. Their specialty was not only sport fishing, but also shark cage diving. As I learned more from her about their popular shark trips, I became very interested in going, so my daughter and I signed up. The boat took us to Guadalupe Island, a volcanic island located off the western coast of Mexico's Baja California peninsula, in the Pacific Ocean. It’s about 400 kilometers from land, and uninhabited except for seals and sea lions, which great white sharks love to eat.
The journey to the island was overnight, and thankfully through calm seas. When we awoke, the sunrise greeted us, as we anchored in a in little cove where we could see the rocky shore of the island. On our first day of the five day trip, we had an informational and safety meeting, then it was time to get in the water. I trusted the crew, and felt brave, so I donned a wetsuit, attached a breathing hose, and lowered myself into the metal cage with three others. Each of us had weights around our waist to hold us to the cage floor, which is solid metal. The cage is attached to the stern of the boat with solid arms, which hold it at a close distance, without allowing it to bang against the boat.
Down in the blue clear water, with the hull of the boat behind us and the open water on three sides, there was a quiet peace. I waited, scanning the deep blue around me, my phone hanging from my neck in a waterproof bag. I felt safe, which is strange, as we were not close to shore, and the water was cold and deep. The crew lured the sharks to the boat by tossing whole tuna heads attached to rope, which they swung out over the surface of the water, then pulled back up. From below, I could see a mangled tuna head break the surface, and then raise back up. Soon, an incredibly sleek, quiet, and somewhat slow moving great white began circling the boat with hunger and curiosity. Then more came, slowly, from the dark blue distance. They swam after the tuna heads, passing by the cage so closely that I could have reached out and touched them. They made vertical jumps and breaches, trying to snag the tuna heads. Viewed from below, their movements were absolutely incredible.
After a while, my hands began to go numb from the cold, so I climbed up. The top of the cage had a large opening, about a foot above water, that we climbed out of as the crew assisted us. Once back on board, the air was crisp and sunny, and there was a hot tub to warm up in. For five days, I lowered myself into the cage to observe these incredible creatures in their home. That was four years ago, and I have not had a nightmare since.
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