Eye to eye shark dive

Let’s just start here: I was petrified of sharks as I drove up to Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium (PDZA). For the same reason, many people are afraid of sharks: movies.

“Sharks have gotten a lot of bad PR,” says PDZA’s Heidi Wilken.

No kidding. I was nine years old when the megahit “Jaws” came swimming onto the big screen, scaring the ocean out of me and everyone I knew with its sharks-are-out-to-get-us message and its tagline warning, “Don’t go into the water!”

Photo by Katie G. Cotterill/Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium

If you go

Must be age 8 or older (no exceptions), in stable health, and complete an online waiver. Some medical conditions may require program modifications.
No experience is necessary. An adult must accompany minors to the zoo and program check-in.
All gear is supplied. Prescription masks are available for nearsighted people.
The experience is about an hour, with about 20 minutes of in-water time.
Cost: Zoo members pay $95 (plus tax) per participant, and non-members pay $115 (plus tax). Zoo admission and a souvenir video are included.
Up to four people can dive at once. For a private experience, book all four spots.
Wheelchair-accessible building. A short ladder or a lift can be used to enter the water.

Questions? Check out PDZA's online Shark Dive Frequently Asked Questions or contact sharkdives@pdza.org

Suffice it to say I was a very impressionable kid. For years, I wouldn’t so much as stick my toe in a surf. And when I watched “Thunderball” with my James Bond-loving parents not long after seeing “Jaws,” swimming pools joined my “sharkphobia.” I wish I were kidding.

In my efforts to take back the night on shark fear, I’ve learned a bit about sharks since childhood. For example, I know they would rather live on land than tangle with—or bite—a human; if they do, it’s generally a case of mistaken identity. A surfer paddling a board looks an awful lot like a sea turtle. I know I am as likely to run into a shark while frolicking in the waves at local beaches as an alien in my bathroom. Most importantly, I know many species are threatened or endangered (33%, according to Point Defiance staff).

But get in a tank with six different species of them?

An experience for shark nerds and worriers alike

After doing just that through the PDZA Eye-to-Eye Shark Dive program, my answer is emphatic: YES. Dive in. Do it.

The Eye-to-Eye program was first launched in 2012, but was closed due to pandemic and and aquarium upgrade. It will reopen on August 21. It’s a chance to experience one of two things:

If you or your kids ages 8 and up love all things shark, it will thrill you and reaffirm your healthy affection. As sharks circle the tank and come close enough for your child to touch (but no touching, please!), their future as a shark conservationist may be sealed.

If you or they are like me, afraid of sharks for all the wrong reasons, an Eye-to-Eye Dive is an opportunity to safely experience sharks as the gentle, elegant, and largely disinterested-in-you-or-humans-in-general animals they are. My shark dive was a reframing experience that may well change my relationship with the ocean forever.

“It’s all about connecting people to wildlife,” says Wilken, the aquarium’s lead dive safety officer and a passionate advocate for sharks. “People come [to PDZA] every day to form wonderful, deep connections with all of our animal ambassadors. This is a very immersive version of that, where you get to be right down in the world of sharks and get to know them in a way you can’t through the glass barrier.”

Eye to eye shark dive view of nurse shark

Photo by Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium shark dive staff

Shark education precedes each dive

Before heading to the tank, Wilken gave me a thorough and enthusiastic overview of shark species (there are 500 of them, but six species live in the dive tank). She discussed the role of sharks in the ocean, their threatened status, conservation efforts, and, yes, that public image problem.

“The Great Whites specifically are very typecast,” she said, referring back to my “Jaws” ordeal. “We want to get you in the water and get to know them better. Sharks are really important to our oceans. They provide a lot of ecosystem services. They balance populations and regulate our ocean health in every ocean of the world. Not only are they interesting and fascinating, they are crucially important.”

Young divers are encouraged to bring and throw their burning shark questions at any dive staff, all of whom share Wilken’s shark love.

I was then oriented to the gear used for the dive, how to breathe through a mouthpiece, and how to release pressure from the ears. No diving experience is necessary to participate. The program’s dive team moved in and suited me in a dry suit, and soon it was go-time.

Up close and personal during an eye-to-eye shark dive

The author gets a close-up view of a gently swimming shark. Photo by PDZA shark dive staff.

Into the tank

As I walked toward the tank, dive team member Jacqueline Keleher, who stayed by my side throughout the dive, told me what she loves most about being so close to the sharks is the calm beneath the surface and their graceful movement. “You’ll see,” she promised. Nonetheless, my nerves kicked back in.

But I did see. Once in the water, the team deflated my suit to fit snugly around me and added weights so I wouldn’t float to the top of the tank. With the mouthpiece in place, I dropped into the 76-degree water and an underwater cage that kept me safe but allowed clear and close-up viewing.

I had barely put a hand on the cage bar to steady myself when a sizable Zebra shark named Peanut made a bee-line toward me. I almost stopped breathing despite the steel separating us, my heart pumping like a movie scream. Her head tilted to the left, and—I kid you not—I could have sworn she looked straight at me and whispered, “See? Jaws was wrong,” before she swerved right and continued her circling. Sharks must keep moving to breathe, I learned. And that zebra sharks start with stripes, but they turn to spots as the shark matures.

Each time Peanut passed, I fell more deeply in love with her small golden eye. Keleher was right. I did see.

From PDZA shark dive education session.

Leaning that will follow you home

The dive experience is about an hour, with about 20 minutes in the tank—enough time to be mesmerized but short enough that young kids won’t yawn. Much attention is paid to safety and ensuring divers feel comfortable and safe and know they can retreat from the tank anytime.

Divers, young and old, will carry several essential things away from the experience:

The understanding that sharks need our protection, not our fear: “They’re so important, and they’re really under threat,” says Wilken. Consider reviewing certified shark preservation programs online with your child and, together, choose one for financial support;
An understanding of shark products they should avoid, like souvenir shark jaws, sharkfin soup, and things that contain the wors squalene, chondroitin, and ocean fish meal;
An idea of why eating sustainable seafood helps sharks. Research online and take your child to the store with you when you purchase seafood to find sustainable items;
And awe and respect for the shark kingdom and its species, even the much-maligned Great White.

Image from Official pinkfong Baby Shark YouTube.

A lifeline fear rightsized, a plea to parents

One of these days, I will sit down and watch “Jaws” again as the aging adult I am. I know I will find it absurd, a menacing shark hunting humans and one ship captain in particular, and I’ll wonder why I was ever scared. Still, I was a child and who knows where a child’s mind will go? So, I want to make a plea to parents:

Instead of allowing your kids to watch graphic, fear-inducing, and fictional accounts of shark attacks or highlighting the very few and extremely rare attacks that do happen, turn on the “Baby Shark” video and dance with sharks. Teach them about how important they are. A dive can be one piece of growing in them, a love of sharks and other endangered species.

What a difference these things would have made to the last 50 years of my life.