Last week, my family and I jumped into a cage in the ocean surrounded by sharks. It was a blast.

When I called my father, telling him that I'd found an ad for a North Shore Shark Tour in a Haleiwa coffee shop, I didn't really expect him to like the idea. I often come up with silly things that I would like to do someday, hang gliding and bungee jumping high on that list, and I've long accepted that if that someday ever comes, I will not be able to convince my sensible family to join me. To my surprise, the old man was all for it. Of course, he has recently acquired a motorcycle and a chili pepper gangsta bandana to go with it, so really I should have known.

On Sunday, we converged in Wahiawa, my sister, her husband, my father, my boyfriend and myself, and drove out to the harbor to meet our boat. It was small, with a two man crew and a huge steel cage on the back and a grinning barefoot surfer guy helping us on board. We had a bumpy, choppy, fast ride out to sea, which I absolutely loved. I was worried I might be seasick, but I never have been before, and I suspect it's not on my large list of handicaps. I would ride on that boat every damn day.

When we came to a stop, the guys started lowering the cage into the water and to our left a couple of humpback whales appeared, much closer than I had ever seen anything of that size. Whale watching boats aren't allowed to come more than 100 yards of the whales themselves but, the crew explained with a grin, shark boats have no such rules on them, and the whales came to us anyway. They lolled out of the water and fluked a few times, our adorable surfer guy whooping in joy, and all of us nearly peeing ourselves.

My sister elected to stay on the ship, so I decended into the cage with my father, the Boyfriend and Justin. The following photos are my views from that point on.



( Sharkgirl of Bora Bora... )