This past July my husband and I had the opportunity to visit the Bahamas to celebrate our anniversary and enjoy a little alone time together. The trip was much needed as it had been a hard last few months full of a lot of change from me traveling all the time for work, to leaving my job to become a stay at home mommy, to miscarrying our third child at 15 weeks (less than a month prior, this is important as you will see in moment) to transitioning our oldest to Kindergarten. Given all these things we decided we were due for a little R&R and some fun. So thanks to the help of awesome grandparents who offered to watch our oldest two we packed our bags and headed out of town for a long weekend.
All in all we had a great time just being together. However, the most memorable part of the trip was a bit of a nightmare to say the least. I feel like every trip we have ever taken as just the two of us we have left with some near death experience (I kid you not…I have at least 6 or 7 stories I could tell you right off the bat). Thankfully we seem to have much better luck (or just travel safer) when we travel as a family. This particular experience we really didn’t see coming when we signed up to do a snorkeling excursion that would take us around the island to snorkel different locations and see some amazing fish and wildlife in the process.
On the excursion we made numerous different stops around different coral reefs and underwater locations and eventually stopped at the location of a shipwrecked ship on top of a reef. The guides stayed on the boat but told us we were free to explore over the shipwreck on top of the reef and to be sure to look for all the cool treasures and numerous beautiful fish below at the site of the shipwreck.
The ship had wrecked on top of a reef which created pretty sudden and deep drop offs when you swam to any of the edges of the reef. We were happily snorkeling around holding hands enjoying the sights when all of a sudden I saw and felt Josh kick backwards and swim violently to the surface of the water. I really didn’t think much of it at first as there were lots of jelly fish around us and assumed he had almost swam into one (which had already happened more than once). I continued snorkeling until it dawned on me that his reaction would probably not have been quite as extreme to a jelly. I then also quickly came up to the surface and pulled my mask off to see him looking at me and also all around in the water below. When he saw that I clearly was not disturbed he says, “promise me you won’t freak out.” Which of course makes me start to freak out. He goes on to tell me that a seven foot bull shark had been headed straight at me moments earlier. I had been swimming on the very edge of the reef with the drop off to my back and Josh was facing toward the drop off so while I was oblivious he had seen and experienced the entire thing. He had watched the shark quickly come directly for me out of the dark blue below (drawn by what we think was the blood he was smelling from the recent loss of our baby as my body had still not completely healed all the way) right up to me. Josh said he got within a foot or so from me and decided to turn around. Clearly I was not the dead animal he had been hoping for….we quickly swam back to the boat and THANKFULLY lived to tell the tale. I was so scary just swimming back to the boat that I am so thankful I didn’t know what was happening at the time of the shark swimming toward me. On the other hand I am not sure my husband will ever go snorkeling again as he still has nightmares of how he would have protected me if the shark attacked.
That my friends is the story of how I almost was eaten by a shark. Anyone else ever had any shark encounters? How about near death experiences while on vacation? Share them in the comments below!
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