Day 217 in Beijing: Swimming With Sharks.

When I received my license to be a Marriage and Family Therapist about 4 years ago, I went skydiving to celebrate.

I had made a vow that I would do something that terrifies me every year because I believe in overcoming irrational fears.

I love doing exposure therapy with clients who have anxiety and letting them realize that their anxiety is a lie.  There truly is nothing to fear except their mind’s perception of reality.

So, I feel it is only fair for me to do something terrifying, to prove that I can overcome my fears, if I’m going to ask them to overcome theirs.

Mark one more goal of my bucket list.

I swam with sharks today.

Yep, I actually swam with living sharks.

I wasn’t in a cage.

They weren’t in a cage.

We were at Payar Palau near Langkawi, Malaysia.

The longest shark was probably about 4 feet long.

The smallest about 1.5 feet long.

They were incredibly beautiful and I can’t believe anyone would want to harm or eat this magnificent creatures.

Sadly, many people do.

A little back story about the trip:

Jill and I had wanted to do some snorkeling on this trip but hadn’t found the right place or time.  A dear friend, Kean, who is from Malaysia, recommended we do this trip and go to this little island.

We can not thank him enough for the recommendation!

We took a ferry for 2 hours to get to the island and jumped off onto the docking station. We then were told the rules and regulations and put on our life vests and snorkeling gear.

We hopped in the water and were blown away by how many fish there were in the bay.  Also the color of the fish were incredible.

We didn’t take many pictures of the fish because we didn’t have a waterproof camera but here is the link to the for Palau Payar.

And here is a link to the wikipedia page that shows the Blacktip Reef Sharks.

We swam around for about 3 hours, had lunch, and then swam some more.  We also did the glass bottom boat and just lounged around for a bit.

If you notice, the water is green.   That is because it is “winter” here (and about 90 degrees with 70% humidity) and the algae grows in the water and turns it from blue to green.   If we were here during the summer, the water would be a perfect blue.

 

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