Impressions of a shark chaser (Perhentian Islands, Malaysia)

(Here is another nice piece of colour commentary by Elisabeth - Tim.)

Yes, sharks we chased and sharks we saw, at least some of us. Tim, to his great frustration, did not. His splashing and desperate look and mild swearing probably scared the little fish, or should I say beast of the deep, away.

Afterwards, I came to think that it is often the most scared and less enthusiastic ones that end up seeing what they most fear, where the ones who are of an opposite mind often don’t. In this case it was true. We were a few people on that trip that would have sworn that they would rather die than see a shark. But our shark instinct was awakened, as the trip progressed. ‘World famous’ (in Denmark) and media attention seeking Danish navy seal guy, BS Christiansen, would have been apalled by this sudden turn of 'human' mind . His ‘fantastic' (and of course always ‘dangerous’) expeditions into the wild should have taught me that,“your actions could have unfortunate concequences, and you could die if you mess with the forces of nature”.

Turning BS’s ‘strong’ words over in my mind as we swam around Shark Point didn’t really work, it turned out. Our tour guy Rice (what an appropriate name for a South East Asian guy!), was BS’s worst nightmare. “Not dangerous”, he kept on saying, so after a while we decided to trust the guy. And the chase began.

Tim of course was the first to jump in and took off with our tour guide. The rest of us followed. We were never doubting when something big was happening as our guide would suddenley speed up and point. The first time nobody saw anything, so we thought, 'is this guy trying to scam us or what?'.

But then Inge, our least enthusiastic saw the thing - 1.5 meters of grey horror.

But at that time everybody had forgotten everything about any fears that might have existed beforehand and started following Inge and our guide. And it paid off. Even though I didn’t come face to face with the shark, I still saw it swimming right in front of me. I felt no fears at all. Sharks move very swiftly, and therefore it can be hard to keep focus on them, and that is why I didn't for long, and I guess the reason why Tim also didn't see the second one. Our guide kept on pulling me and pointing, but without luck. But the day was a success.

To some, an experience like this might not seem as anything fantastic. But the fact that all snorkeling fears were put aside, and I did have some of those, and also the fact that this could turn out to be be a ones in a life experience made it unique. Rice was the man of the hour.

Elisabeth.