🦈 sharks diving & feeding in Bahamas

It was only the 5th day of 2019 and felt like months passed by. It was a trip I learned deeper about life and how things always work out no matter what.

To begin 2019, I wanted to pamper myself and spontaneously decided to fly to the 🇧🇸 Bahamas. It was always a destination I had in the back of my head for scuba diving. So, I’ve booked my 🏨 hotel, 🤿 diving course and 🚐 transfer.

🛫 Day of departure, things went as usual — checked in, passed immigration, headed to gate, boarded and took off. I was pretty excited about the Shark Awareness Speciality course. Then, I felt something was off… a sudden realisation that I forgot my wallet at home. Yes that’s right, I only had my passport, C$50 and mobile. Then, I thought — “✨ the real adventure begins”⁉️

⚠️ 1st roadblock was money exchange and was none at the airport. So, I decided to just head to the hotel.

⚠️ 2nd roadblock was room reservation and the hotel declined to process it since I failed to verify with my physical credit card. I told the Manager my situation and she was really nice to offer a solution that I got my brother to authorise his credit card for me to use for my stay. ✅ checked in.  

🏖️ Full access to Atlantis Resort
What’s nice about staying at Comfort Suite was that I got full access to Atlantis Resort next door with cheaper cost and complimentary breakfast 🍳☕.

I enjoyed their entire theme park — beaches, pools, bars, restaurants, park activities+++.

How it works⁉️ Paper card with account details was given at check in and allowed me to credit my spendings to my hotel room until check out. With that card, I obtained a wristband at Atlantis (The Coral) lobby that gave access to their theme park. ✨ Lucky me, that’s how I survived the next 4 days. 

🦈 Diving with sharks and shark feeding
Day 2, 🤩 Most exciting part of this trip — Stuart Cove’s dive centre provides complimentary 🚐 return transfer between the dive centre and most hotels, pretty convenient. Once registered, I headed straight to the boat with my own equipment. Time to the dive site was pretty short ≈10mins and did 2 dives. 2️⃣ dive was like any leisure dives just with sharks swimming by. 2️⃣ dive was observing shark feeding.

⚠️ “Shark arena” they called it. Sharks associate arm stretching motion with food. So we were instructed to have our arms near our body and of course, no petting allowed. Thou, it was tempting… Divers kneeled around to watch the feeding. Water temperature was ≈24°C and it was freezing especially being stationed for 30mins+.

✨ Truly an amazing experience to observe sharks’ behaviours. 🦈 They’re seriously mistaken, see it for yourself when you watch these videos. ? Camera man was knocked too many times because they just wanted their food.

📹 Few videos below, click here for trip album or feel free to continue 👀 reading.

 🏖️ Last 2 days were constant tanning, napping on the beach and exploring Atlantis. Atlantis is huge, walking between beaches is like a workout. It was nice to stroll along the empty beaches early in the morning. They also have a big marina habitat with multiple lagoons, like dolphins, sea turtles, stingrays and more. The best is probably their iconic Mayan Temple’s Leap of Faith slide. Didn’t get to try it thou, next time!

📸 Few snapshots below, click here for trip album or feel free to continue 👀 reading.

 

That was the end of my time in the Bahamas and the epicness doesn’t stop there. 🙏🏻 So thankful to my friend that I’ve my travel perks again and you know what that means… standby flights!

⚠️ 3rd roadblock was getting searched by 🛃 US Customs, they suspected I was a smuggler. Being brought to the backroom, searched and questioned for 20mins weren’t pleasant. 🦈 I was here really just for sharks.

⚠️ 4th roadblock was failed to get on flights to the US the entire day. All were overbooked and even asked for volunteers to give up their seats for US$1,000.  The whole day, I saw the same faces who are also like me, standby for any flights to get out and we got to chat with one another. That was when I met a Bahamian pilot dad and his daughter. He was very nice checking flight loading for me and doesn’t surprise us, it didn’t look good for the next few days. We chatted more and I shared my ? situation. Honestly, I planned to sleep at the airport.

🤩 Miracles do happened — while waiting for the last flight of the day, chances were slim. So I needed US$ to survive the night and I asked the pilot dad if he would be willing to exchange… he gave me US$50 for my C$50 not only that, he offered his home for me to stay for the night❗❗❗ I was so thankful for his generosity and didn’t know how to repay him. PS – his wife was very kind as well.

🛫 Luckily, I bought a last min cheap ticket to Miami and flew out on the first flight next morning. Last but not least, very lucky once again that there was 1 no-show passenger for my flight to Toronto and I got on that last seat. 🏠 home sweet home!  

Everyone were worried for me… to be honest, “worrying” never came to my mind, not even for a sec. ✨Then, people kept asking — how do things always work out for me⁉️

Life is always filled with uncertainties. The way to go about it is just accept your current situation as-is, be okay with it or even better to enjoy it, ? laugh about it no matter how bad your situation is. Let it go and continue to have ✨200% faith, 200% belief, 100% effort and 0% doubt of your desires. Then sit tight and watch amazing things unfold. It’s always about “holding on” rather than to give up.