Tears began to form in my eyes as I sat on the small raft waiting for the others to emerge from the depths. I tried my best to prepare for everything. Our travel plans were laid down over a year ago. Monies were saved. Flights were booked. Hours of special training was endured as anticipation continued to build. Sitting on the small raft as the light rain began to fall, I was thankful that the tiny drips from the sky would mask the tears should they decide to fall from my eyes. I’m not the kind of person that gets all worked up over things and for the most part I consider myself rather even keeled when it comes to my emotions…so it’s understandable that I wasn’t expecting this. With all the preparations I had done for this trip in the past year, I apparently had failed in one area--I just was not emotionally prepared for the moments that I was experiencing.

Don’t get me wrong here. Nothing bad happened…quite the opposite actually. A short thirty minutes prior to boarding the small craft I found myself sixty feet below sea level, floating above the edge of an underwater cliff and staring up at my surroundings. I was slightly overcome by the shock and awe of everything. Within arms length, hundreds of hammerhead sharks swam past us while sea turtles slowly flew by in search of food. A minute or two later came the school of eagle rays and white tipped sharks that seemed to pass us by without more than a look. Distracted by the overwhelming sea traffic in front of me, I almost hadn’t noticed the dozen or so eels that were within my immediate area, slinking around the rocks below me as I arrived close enough to risk the loss of a finger or two. Thankfully I had established the proper buoyancy required, and a simple healthy intake of air from my nitrox filled tank lifted me a few feet above the finger hungry eels that littered the side of the cliff.

Seven of us drifted slowly through this scuba divers paradise that was just teaming with life everywhere we looked. We eventually came up against what can best be described as a very large rock formation that protruded from the depths of the ocean, past sea level and straight up about a hundred feet above the Pacific Ocean. As we struggled the currents to turn the corner around this rock, a few fish begin to appear in our immediate surroundings. The few fish became a few dozen. Then it was a few hundred. Before we knew it, we were surrounded by thousands of them. Prior to getting caught up in this school of fish, our visibility had been about sixty feet or so, but the thousands of fish that we were suddenly caught up with had reduced our visibility to about a foot. They were everywhere. So many of them surrounded us that it actually got dark as their bodies blocked the sunlight from reaching us. Floating in darkness and surrounded by all these fish, I began to lose my sense of direction. I have to admit, I was a little scared. Our entire dive group was split up from each other and lost in a seemingly endless orgy of fish. These fish can best be individually described as silvery with a black stripe down the middle and measuring only about a foot in length. Harmless when confronted alone, but somewhat pesky when grouped by the thousands.

The massive school of fish eventually passed and I suddenly found myself alone in seventy feet of water and searching for the rest of my dive group while they were apparently doing the same thing, each of us temporarily lost and alone. As my eyes scanned the area in search of my fellow divers I notice a large dark spot in the water coming towards me. It was still far enough away that I could not yet see it’s features, but I knew from its apparent size and outline that it was indeed what I had traveled over three thousand miles to see. I couldn't believe my luck and was so excited that I totally froze in place. I had not counted on seeing a whale shark because its somewhat uncommon to spot this late in the year, but there it was. Whale sharks have a mouth measuring about five feet across and slowly move through the water at about three miles per hour...a struggle for most of us to keep up with while strapped with weights, tanks and other miscellaneous scuba gear that lack the design for any fast paced movements underwater. I eventually snapped out of the hypnotic state that I was in and began to move. Swimming as fast as I could towards the forty foot long fish, I was rejoined with my group of divers who apparently also caught glimpse of the massive shark nearby and were also struggling to keep up. Fortunately I was briefly able to maintain equal pace with this giant for a few minutes as I swam at arms length, looking it right in the eye.

A few minutes swimming with the whale shark was all I had before my supply of air started to fade. I eventually stopped swimming and let the giant glide past me, on to other parts of the world. As I began my ascent back to the surface, a team of dolphins swam past and judging by the looks on their faces and in their eyes, I got the feeling that they were talking about me. Weird, but there it was.

On the surface and finally back in the little rubber raft that brought us to this dive spot, I was sitting and waiting for the other divers to emerge. One by one, they would surface nearly ten minutes after me as I tend to breathe a lot more air than most divers. For ten minutes I sat on the raft and reflected on everything that I had seen in the water. Meanwhile, thousands of birds soared high over my head as a group of sea lions played on the rocks nearby. That’s when it hits me like a ton of bricks. I’ve done a lot of traveling and I’ve seen a lot of really cool things, but I’ve never quite had an experience like I’d just had in the waters surrounding the Galapagos Islands. I’ve never done anything quite like swimming with a whale shark. I’ve never seen an area teaming with such an abundance of life. So many fish. So many sharks. Never before have I felt so privileged to have experienced something so simple and simultaneously incredible and amazing. I cant recall ever being moved to the point of tears….happy tears anyway. I even now struggle to come up with the words to best describe my experience. I’m afraid I just can not properly convey the overwhelming feeling of happiness and life that I got from this adventure…and this was only the first day of a week long stay on board a fifteen passenger boat sailing around the Galapagos Islands for a week. We would eventually spot and swim with several other whale sharks, sea lions, turtles, penguins and all kinds of other marine life. This place has everything.

Pictured above is the look on my face after Galapagos Islands dive number 18...sheer joy, amazement, wonder, peace, happiness....all of this is what I am thankful for today. Happy Thanksgiving.