Never in my life have I been so aware of the sun’s comings and goings.

We rose at the ungodly hour of 3:45am in order to make the drive from Cape Town to the seaside town of Gansbaai, where our day’s activity would commence.  As we neared our destination, the sky began to lighten, illuminating mountains and water and trees and open spaces.  It was reminiscent of the early-Saturday-morning drive to Tahoe that I’ve endured many many times, a thought that issued a brief shot of homesickness.  We pulled into Gansbaai just as the sun was about to rise from behind a distant mountain.  I jumped out of the car, camera in hand, and anticipated that rush of wonderment I’ve become addicted to.

Until lately my observance of sunrises had been wildly disproportionate to that of sunsets.  In San Francisco I closed out many a day watching the sun fall behind the Golden Gate Bridge – a site I never grew even a little tired (how could anyone?).  But sunrises, I’m finding, are uniquely magical.  Like sunsets, they offer a dose of suspense, but also a sense of potential.  Anything can happen.  I just might swim with sharks.

I’ll be honest, it’s one of the more ridiculous things I’ve ever done.

This was my thought as I sat wearing an ill-fitting wetsuit in a metal cage tied to the side of a boat bobbing in the Atlantic ocean off the coast of South Africa.  Overhead, a man named Lance tossed clumps of fish heads into the water a few yards beyond me.  As I waited eagerly to hear him yell ‘Shark! Duck Down!’ my fingers grew numb and I could not feel my feet and I was too anxious to muster the relaxation required to do the one thing that would make my situation any warmer.  My teeth began to chatter and I started to entertain the idea of asking to be let out.  I’d almost gotten the full experience, after all: I’d seen the shark from outside of the water, then experienced what it’s like to be in the water.  I felt confident I could mentally squish the two together into a cohesive memory.

But then it happened.  Lance announced the arrival of a shark, ordering us once again to keep our limbs “INSIDE” the cage (as if I needed to be reminded). I gasped a huge breath then ducked under the water, tucking my feet under the bottom bar as I’d been instructed, just in time to see 10 feet of one of the sea’s deadliest creatures pass within arms reach of me.

On instinct I screamed – a closed-mouth, back-of-the-throat kind of scream that disappeared into the murky water.  There’s something fundamentally terrifying about coming face to face with a creature that could swallow you with just a few snaps of his jaw.  I realize how fortunate we humans are – that to feel anywhere but at the top of the food chain we must willingly climb inside of a cage.

I popped up to take a breath just as a swell swept over the cage, filling my mouth with sea water.  I thought of the fish heads and began to gag.  Beside me David excitedly asked if I’d ‘seen it.’  Above me, Lance was calling out the same question.  But of course I’d seen it – the thing was huge.

To get an idea of exactly how huge, view the video here (and please pardon my school-girl scream – I’ve been known to do the same over something as harmless as a sea lion).