Here's a little girl, in her upper single digits.
She likes to pull her socks up to her knees because she likes the squeezy feeling on her legs, but will fly into a teary, snotty, sniveling panic if forced to wear a turtleneck because IT IS CHOKING HER.
Loves dresses and will not wear pants without hours of negotiation.
Prefers books and animals to people.
Obsesses about single topics for extended periods of time—has just left a very thoroughly-researched dinosaur phase. Now, she is on to sharks, this little girl who doesn't like pants or getting dirty. Sharks, of all things. She writes reports for school about them, making diagrams of sharks' eyes rolling back into their heads when they eat. She watches a National Geographic video about them over and over and over. And on that video, she sees film of a whale shark. And in that moment, when she sees the human divers dwarfed by the great speckled monster who is lazily swaying his way through the turquoise of the ocean, a seed is planted.
This girl, who is terrified of papercuts and centipedes and ticks, she says to herself that one day she wants to swim with a whale shark, the biggest fish on Earth.
Photo from DiveTrip.com
I have always had this weird fixation, ever since then. And, you know, doesn't it seem like a really far fetched thing to want to do, this swimming with the biggest fish on Earth thing? Doesn't it seem like you'd have to be a kajillionaire or dating Richard Branson to do that? Like you'd have to go to the very middle of the Pacific ocean, to the Marianas or something?
Because why on Earth would these most maximal of creatures be just chilling somewhere accessible?
Well, they ARE somewhere accessible. When we were researching our trip to Guatemala, a number of the guidebooks also included sections on neighboring Honduras. And, lo and behold, I found out that whale sharks are actually pretty common in Honduras's Bay Islands. It's not, like, Florida or whatever, but Honduras really isn't that far away, and there they are, almost year round. So, really, my dreams are well within reach: not too physically far away, and it's an affordable destination. Watch out, whale sharks, an awkward pale girl is coming your way.
Honduras has some other stuff to recommend it, too, like the Copan ruins, which have some of the most intricately beautiful Mayan carvings to be found anywhere.
It's just too bad that the area where the whale sharks are plentiful is so unfortunate looking:
Photo by Adam Laverty via AboutUtila.com
Photo by Robert Francis.
I mean, who the hell wants to go there? I think I could get over that scenery, if it means that I get to swim with the big guys.
You make me happy. :)
ReplyDeleteokay, LOVE this post. reminded me of "amelie" in some ways. which i also love. however, the giant fish scares the crap out of me. dave and i were at cabella's yesterday (don't ask) and we saw a huge muskie swimming in a tank. it may have been enough to scare me from the lakes for decades.
ReplyDeleteplease tell me you're going to honduras.