|
Scuba Snoopy was bored. It had been 4 months since his last big adventure when he was off encountering Mola mola in Bali and since then diving had been pretty dull. He’d done a couple of dives in Nelson Bay looking at seahorses, nudibranchs and anglerfish, however he’d become bored of the Bay. Snoopy even thinks that Nelson Bay diving is over rated and doesn’t understand why anyone would want to spend so much time looking at tiny little critters.... some people are just weird! Snoopy wanted some big fish action and he’d always wanted to see a shark. However Snoopy was rather wary as he’d seen on Discovery channel what sharks do to seals so imagine what they would do to a poor little puppy dog!. But Snoopy had been told there is a shark they call the giant puppy dog of the sea, the grey nurse shark. Surely he’d be safe as one puppy dog wouldn’t eat another, would it? He got on the phone and rang his good friend Peter ‘The Hoff’ Hitchins from South West Rocks Dive Centre to see if the conditions were any good at Fish Rock. The reply of “its 22 degrees, 20 metres vis and bucket loads of sharks” was all it took for Snoopy to hop in his fully sick snoop dog car and head up the Pacific Highway.
The next morning he was on the new SW Rocks Dive Centre boat, appropriately called Fish Rocket. Snoopy liked this boat as it was big and roomy and went as fast as a space rocket. They arrived at Fish Rock in no time at all and as they were gearing up The Hoff gave a dive brief to Snoopy. “We’ll just swim through the deep entrance of the cave, up to the shallow end and hopefully we’ll see some grey nurse sharks hanging out”. Well hang on a minute!!! Snoopy was keen to see a shark, not swim through some pitch black friggin cave. Snoopy was scared... he didn’t have his cave dive certification and he’d never dived in a cave before. But the Hoff assured him all would be cool and gave him a special drink called ‘Harden Up’ and Snoopy felt revitalised, he was ready to take on the big black cave and anything it was willing to throw at him! Bring it on!!! As they entered the cave Snoopy felt rather alone... all he could do was follow the torch light in front of him and hope that he didn’t bump into anything. up a narrow dark chimney and then he saw it in the distance, a beautiful bright blue light that was the opening to the shallow entrance of the cave, it was so beautiful and surreal that Snoopy decided there and then that he liked caves. In fact he decided this might be one of his favourite dives and he hadn’t even seen a shark yet!
But he wasn’t here for caves, he wanted sharks. So he positioned himself at the entrance to the cave and waited... and waited... and waited some more. There wasn’t a shark to be seen. Snoopy was starting to think he was jinxed!
And then he saw it! A small torpedo shape in the distance was approaching the cave entrance and it was getting bigger and bigger. It was a shark.... Snoopy’s first shark!!! Okay, Snoopy won’t admit it but he was more than a little bit scared when he first shark.... it was humungous and after seeing the big pointy white teeth he was glad he’d packed the brown budgie smugglers! After eye balling the shark off to show that Snoopy was tougher, the shark got the hint and slowly turned away and exited the cave. Snoopy had taken on the shark and won!!!
The next thing Snoopy saw was a turtle, this was Snoopy’s first ever turtle encounter. He was losing his diving virginity left, right and centre, First a cave then a shark and now a turtle!!! The only problem was that this small Hawkbill Turtle thought Snoopy looked rather like a tasty sponge and was about to bite into him until the Hoff appeared from nowhere and pulled Snoopy away to safety. The Hoff was a hero, just like he was on Snoopy’s favourite TV show Baywatch! Phew.
As they swam back to the boat Snoopy passed over several other grey nurse sharks, it had been a good day! A scary day but a very good day. Now that Snoopy has mastered eyeballing off the grey nurse he needs a new challenge...maybe it’s time to take on the Great Whites!
THE END |
