Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
Intrepid traveller Rohan Shanker, head of corporate communications for Terra Sola Ventures, a solar energy company headquartered in Bahrain, dipped his toes in the waters for a bite-sized holiday adventure off the coast of Malapacascua in the Philippines.
IT was a stormy night. The balmy evening had made way for a lightning show that covered the entirety of the horizon. In the dark I could hear the thunder, with sporadic flashes of light, and the waves hitting against the rocky shore from my hut that abutted the ocean.
All I could think about was my early morning wake-up call. Before I knew it, the 4.15am alarm was ringing insistently for a second time. I stumbled out of bed. It was still dark outside but from the sounds of the gentle lapping I knew that is was much calmer than last night. After gathering my scuba-gear I headed to the check in.
Before long, all six bleary-eyed divers were loaded up to the boat and we were racing the sun to the famous Monad Shoal dive site.
As the sun broke through the clouds in the colours of autumn, we geared up (scuba term) and took a giant stride into the cobalt blue waters and the group descended together to a steep 17 metres straight down to a sandy sea floor.
You had just about enough time to gain your bearings, but not enough to perfect that ‘NatGeo-esq’ photograph of the resident octopus, when the guide rushed you over a cliff. We descended to what seemed like forever into blackness. At great depths, time became a precious commodity.
24 metres and the deeper you went beams of early morning sunlight diffused and the blue-grayness gave way to shapes and you realised you are not alone. Bat fish, groupers and, maybe, some tuna could be seen swimming in and out of the haze.
Warm water made way for the cold currents of the depths. Just as your breathing became more laborious –after all, at 30m there is three times the normal atmospheric pressure on your lungs – you glided over to a ledge in the cliff-face and stopped.
Perched on the edge of the ledge, with the cliff wall behind, there was a murky glaucous-coloured veil in front and black depths below. How deep does it go? There was no indication. It seemed like forever. And the wait began.
Before long, a silver gleam. Then, a shape emerged. Mammoth and muscular, powerful with a gentle glide that exuded confidence.
“I am the predator. Cower, all ye with bubbles before me,” it seemed to convey through its black eyes that can surely focus better than ours in this murky water. With a long bendy tail that strikes fear and excites divers all over the world, the Thresher Shark made its presence felt.
It circled around once, then twice and again, coming closer with each loop, winding its way in and out of the veil.
How many of them were there? One couldn’t tell. It could be just one or two. It could be a whole gang. We spotted them mostly alone but sometimes in pairs. My dive master seemed to think that day we saw at least five distinct sharks.
Finally, they decided we were not worthy of further investigation and, thankfully, did not come any closer. Perhaps it was serendipity because my no-decompression limit was almost up and I needed to converse air for the 30m-plus slow ascent with two safety stops in between.
As we ascended the cliff-face in a steep rise, I realised that my back was to that unyielding veil. I did a quick three-dimensional flip, the kind only possible underwater – head went down and body moved around – to spot one shark following our group. At least 10m below us and perhaps another 15m away … close but not too close.
I hoped we would continue to remain uninteresting.
