Swimming with the Sharks

I’m just watching the "Crocodile Hunter" swim with sharks and whales off the coast of Australia and it took me back a few days to my Friday night challenge, we were up at Balsam Lake for a couple of days break and I’d had a couple of beers, followed by half a litre of Peller Estates. I stood on the jetty, looking out to the floating swim platform about thirty feet offshore and I said to my wife "That’s my goal for tomorrow, I’m going to swim out to that platform"

Now I, like Steve, have the deepest respect for the natural world and the animals that live within it, my goal of swimming to the platform would involve no harm to the natural habitat and the little fishes that would swim by my side, I can imagine their amazing life changing stories as they returned home that Saturday afternoon.

"Mam, you shudda seen the size of the thing, all rotund and splashing about like a huge goti [1], me and me buvver Lawrence were scared out of our wits but we follered him and he went and then he came back and then he went again and then we went off and then, well, it just was like anuvver day and so we went off to see if there was anyfing in the weeds, but there wasn’t, we looked for favver but he’s still not where he was when we left him so we came home to tell you about the goti and all dat, wots for tea?"

I’m sorry, I lost the point of this blog then, point, yes, need a point…

So, I dive in, hit my face in the sand that’s about three foot below the water, biting my lip in the process, swim the ten yards, which seems a lot longer, grab hold of the rail and hoist myself up onto the seagull papoo covered floating jetty that smells like rotten seaweed and bird ass. I Stood there for a triumphant fifteen seconds with the white stuff squeezing between my toes, then I launched myself back into the water, skimming the sand that’s now an impressive four foot below the waterline and race back to the shore, with nothing on my little feet I scraped the top of my toes painfully on some submerged concrete step, the adventure ended as I pulled myself breathless out of the wild kingdom, emerging from the tempestuous waters relatively unscathed by my incredible skirmish with the elements and certain death.

I was ready for a grand celebration of life, the release of joy after extreme sports and a pint or two of the aforementioned wine.

Steve Irwin, eat your heart out.


[1] Fish terminology