Smooth Hound

My dad scuba dived for as long as I can remember. As a young kid, 3 or 4 years old, I remember going to the beach with my parents and older sisters, and they would leave us on the beach for about an hour while they did a dive. Oftentimes we'd have a picnic lunch when they would surface.

At some point when I was young, probably around five to seven, my mom quit diving. The frigid waters were too much for her to bear. My dad had other diving buddies and dive clubs that he would still go out with. When I was around 13 I got certified for diving, and my dad and I would go out every now and then. I found the water to be chilling, too, but I endured.

One night we went to one of the southland beaches for a night dive, my first. The surf was very rough, and after getting suited up and backing into the ocean I lost my weight belt, and we had to abort the dive. A couple weeks later we tried a different beach. We had never dived at this beach, it had a rocky entry. It was much calmer that night. We entered the water with our dive lights and glow sticks going.

Under the sea at night was an ethereal experience. During daylight hours, the whole visible area would be lit with a greenish cast of sunlight filtering down. Without sunlight and only our flashlights and glow sticks illuminating the area, even in relatively shallow waters it was like being in a cave!!! The light cast didn't penetrate even to the surface, or much past the immediate area. It gave the feeling of being inside a cave.

On our way back to the shore, still under water, a shark entered into our field of vision. We were both coming straight at each other, and upon seeing him, my balls kinda crawled up. He wasn't big, probably about three feet, but still... out of your own element, face to face with a killing machine in its own element, it was chilling. Both the shark and ourselves turned to our respective right, and proceeded away from each other, out of our circle of light.

A little research once we got home revealed that what we had seen was a gray smooth hound, a bottom feeder and not any real threat to us. Still, seeing a shark in its own element while being out of yours, makes a lasting impression.