Bruce Carlson

WHAT: Swimming with the Sharks at Georgia Aquarium
WHERE: 225 Baker St.
HOW MUCH?  $190
CONTACT INFO: 404-581-4000. www.georgiaaquarium.org.
FITNESS FACTOR: 1 star
FUN FACTOR: 5 stars

By Colleen Oakley

I’m adventurous; I like living on the edge … to an extent. But I have a short list of things I would never do: sky-diving, bungee jumping and swimming with sharks. That explains why when I got an e-mail inviting me to swim with sharks at the Georgia Aquarium my first reaction was “No way.” I’ve seen “Jaws.”

But then I thought, “This is a controlled environment, and they wouldn’t really let a shark rip a person from limb to limb. That would be bad publicity.”

Also, these are whale sharks, a species that has garnered the nickname “gentle giants”—not exactly the man-eating monsters that I’ve feared since the age of six.

I signed up and began to get as equally excited as I was nervous about this once-in-a-lifetime adventure.

That Tuesday afternoon, I got to the aquarium early and walked around the Ocean Voyager exhibit. I couldn’t believe I would shortly be inside of it looking out.

I met up with one of the dive leaders and a group of five other people who were going to be swimming with me, including a 12-year-old boy and his stepmom. I was glad there was someone smaller than me. If the fish did get hungry, they would probably eat him first and I’d have a chance to swim away.

We were ushered behind the scenes of the aquarium into a classroom-type setting and were shown a short video about safety and how to properly wear our wetsuits and breathing apparatus. Then the instructor ushed a chart to point out several fish pointed that we would be swimming with, including a hammerhead shark.

I looked at the boy. His eyes got big. “Can it hurt me?” he asked.

Yeah. What he said. I looked at the instructor, who smiled. “Of course not,” she said. “But when a whale shark gets near you, play dead.”

Comforting.

I soon learned that this was not a tactic for your safety, but for the whale sharks'. If you’re thrashing around, you could accidentally kick one in the eye or another equally sensitive body part. Seeing as how the aquarium is supposed to be preserving these beautiful animals, hurting them is frowned upon.

After we changed into our wetsuits and had a few more instructions given to us, we all climbed down ladders into the ¾ of a football field-long tank. One dive master swam in front of the group and one behind guiding us in a figure eight around the tank. I put my masked head in the water and started slowly swimming. Hundreds of fish were swimming beneath me—some got within two or three feet of me, and it was mesmerizing. And then about 20 yards in, a dive master tapped me on my shoulder. “A whale shark is coming up behind you,” he said.

My first instinct was to freak out. But then I had another thought: Can’t sharks sense fear? I focused on breathing slowly and tried not to gasp as this huge animal swam up beside me. I played dead, just floating on top of the water, and watched its long speckled body silently pass within yards of my head. When I realized it wasn’t going to eat me (that it, in fact, didn’t even seem to care I was there), I exhaled. It was beautiful. Gentle giant, indeed. SP
Colleen Oakley is a freelance writer in Atlanta and the former editor of Women’s Health & Fitness magazine. Got a fitness challenge for her? E-mail her at colleen@sundaypaper.com.