Safely Being Shark Bait

Tuesday had us at the beautiful Discovery Cove theme park here in Orlando, a place that limits the amount of people who can visit to about one-thousand a day. Of course it has a laid back, tropical theme with such attractions as a lazy river with lush scenery, an aviary, dolphin encounters, and a tropical reef. The usual way to enjoy the reef has visitors put on a swim mask and snorkel then casually floating around all the brightly colored fish and stingrays.

For those willing to fork out the extra bucks you can don a seventy-five pound helmet with attached air hose and walk along the bottom. Its call "SeaVenture" and while its about as safe anything else you might do at any other there park Discovery Cove like to sell the attraction by saying you will see plenty of sharks and other possibly nasty deep sea creatures. First of all the sharks are separated from people like me by a sheet of plexiglass and the stingrays and Eagle rays that swim freely are fairly benign creatures. There are plenty of tropical fish and and for anyone who has been too scared to scuba dive I highly recommend it to anyone who visits.   

One of the sharks that my group saw yesterday, there is just something about that sleek form that thrills me to no end. A long time ago I did scuba dive in the ocean in the waters off South Carolina but never saw the first shark. While I was perfectly safe with no chance for Sammy Shark to sink his very pointy and sharp teeth into me, unless he somehow figured how to jump over the plexiglass barrier, I have to admit I did feel like a kid watching him swim by just centimeters away.

Another great thing about SeaVenture was the near weightless feeling I had walking along the bottom. In fact given my "natural buoyancy"(i.e. body fat) I figure I could have used an extra ten pounds on the helmet to keep me down. 

Alas, I was eventually forced to get out and turn over the fancy helmet to someone else. But I found my lounge chair and was soon taking advantage of another of Discovery Cove attraction which is totally free beer. One of them being Buffett's "Landshark Lager" which was on draft. My only criticism is that they forced me to only one beer at a time.