Shark bait

There are many ways to revive your mojo in mid-life. Joining a triathlon. Finding a good urologist. Arguing with the Senate President.   

But if you want enough mojo to regrow hair on those oft-ignored pink parts, then there is nothing quite like being submerged in shark-infested waters.

For those who do not belong to my three female readership and imaginary fan club, I currently host GMA News TV’s Best Men, a late night magazine show that tests the efficacy of my hair-loss prevention treatments. To keep a steady paycheck, I have rappelled from the top of a 17-story building, flown a two-seater ultra-light plane 500 feet in the air, waded in waist-deep water with chicken-head eating arapaimas and engaged in other extra-curricular activities that have given my yaya high blood.

But the most recent activity that sent my yaya to the emergency room was a visit to Manila Ocean Park. Out of all the activities that I could have done at Ocean Park — ride a glass bottom boat, pet a sea lion (not a euphemism) and feed dead skin to a school of doctor fish — I took part in a face-to-razor-sharp-teeth encounter with a prehistoric predator of the deep that dominated the seas a hundred million years before dinosaurs walked the earth — no, no, I’m not referring to mermen DOMs. It was the Oceanarium Aquanaut Voyage Shark Encounter, a.k.a. Putting Yourself Unnecessarily in Harm’s Way and Paying For It.

I have always enjoyed watching sharks, as long as they were on the opposite side of aquarium glass. And it took more testosterone dopings than Lance Armstrong for me to participate in this encounter because I had to overcome an irrational childhood fear of swimming in the water. And for this fear, I blame Steven Spielberg. Even before I developed pubic hair, I always carried with me the fear that if I swam perilously into the deep end of a pool, a great white shark would instantaneously appear and turn me into sashimi. But, here I am, 30-odd years later, descending in an aquarium that would have made my seven-year-old self scream like a castrati. If only the seven-year-old RJ could just see 30-something RJ now, he would probably say, “Are you out of your #$%^ing mind!?”

Before the shark encounter, I was brought inside the Oceanarium to look at the shark aquarium where I would be immersed. I swear, there were more sharks in the tank than there are in the halls of congress. According to the aquarium tour guide, there were several species of sharks circling the tank that included blacktip reef sharks, white-tip reef sharks, nurse sharks, leopard sharks (his parents must have interesting stories to tell) and sharks that could make you involuntarily pee as they swam close enough to the front of the glass tank.

“Are any of these sharks vegetarians?” I kidded.

“They like to eat vegetarians,” the guide said.

“Pwede ko ba nalang ipakain ang kalyo ko sa doctor fish (Can I have those doctor fish nibble at my toes instead)? Promise, I will scream as much as if I was feeding the sharks.”

After shooting me up with enough tranquilizers to put down a bull elephant, the aquarium staff squeezed me into a wetsuit that appeared two sizes too small for me. Although I couldn’t complain because I was bulging in all the appropriate places (and in some in appropriate ones, too). Perhaps my wetsuit was a way to communicate my alpha male tendencies underwater: my inappropriate bulging would show the sharks who was the king of the deep.

The leopard shark. His folks must have some really interesting stories to tell.

Since I had not yet perfected my mutant telepathic abilities, the shark aquarium master, Mhedz (the “h” is silent, the “z” is said emphatically), taught me the different hand signals to use once we were underwater: up, down, look around, kneel, split, spin, swim for your bloody life and help, the shark has bitten off my spleen.

“But what if the sharks devour my fingers while I feed them? What can I use for signals?” I asked.

“Use whatever digits you have left.” He replied. (Unfortunately, not all my appendages are as dexterous.)

“I’ve heard that sharks can actually smell fear? Tama ba yan (Is that right)?”

“No, but they can smell your urine.”

“Is there a place I can deposit my bladder before we enter the water?”

We proceeded to the platform area where the steel cage that we would be submerged in hung a few inches above the shark aquarium. My appendages started to curl up. Because I had not yet grown gills, Mhedz fitted me with a special diving helmet so that I could breathe freely underwater.

The shark encounter instructor who joined me in the cage (Mhedz with a silent “h”) told me that I might lose my balance as the cage was submerged in the water.

“Sir, can you please let go of my hand and hold onto the bars of the cage?” he calmly requested. “You might lose your balance as we enter the water.”

“Of course I can hold onto the bars. I can hold onto it if I was &^*%ing high!!” I calmly replied. “My appendages are not appetizers!”

“By the way, Sir, only two people can fit into the cage — the aquarium master and the guest,” Mhedz reminded me.  “Your yaya can’t join you in the cage.”

“Even if she just holds her breath?” I begged.

“Last reminder, Sir. Those sharks haven’t been fed for the past few days.” Mhedz’s smile turned razor-sharp. “They will be very hungry when they see the cage in the water.”

From deep inside my bowels, I could hear the seven-year-old RJ scream.

As the hydraulic whirr of the cables signaled our descent into the aquarium, I felt my heart pounding so hard that I could see it throbbing through my slimfit wetsuit. My mind was racing, contemplating several things: Did Mhedz triple-check if the cage was securely fastened? Did my life insurance cover shark bites? Why weren’t there any wetsuits made of chainmail armor? Why do I hear the Jaws theme song playing involuntarily in my head? Would my yaya be waiting for me when we resurfaced? But all that muni-muni abruptly ended once my underwear filled up with seawater and other salty liquids.

Once the water had flooded the cage and enveloped my diving helmet, I was warned that I might experience some discomfort because of the change in air pressure. To equalize the air pressure, Mhedz instructed me to slip my hands into the diving helmet while underwater and use my fingers to press down one nostril and then blow out through the other nostril. But I pleasantly discovered that screaming your bloody lungs out works just as effectively.

When the cage had settled 15 feet underwater, Mhedz handed over to me a net of fish for my main challenge: to ensure that the sharks would consume all 584 galunggongs before we were allowed to resurface. My additional challenge was to see how long I could keep my bladder from exploding. Mhedz flashed me the hand signal that indicated “okay,” and I flashed him back with a hand signal that I cannot describe in a newspaper of general circulation.

Before we descended, Mhedz taught me the proper way to feed the sharks that would prevent me from losing any of my digits: skewer a piece of galunggong onto the sharpened end of a pole, pass the pole out through the small opening of the cage and wait for the shark to take the bait. But Mhedz also warned me to hold the pole firmly and not to dangle it playfully outside the cage. Apex predators do not like to be toyed with, even if the one doing the toying is wearing a slimfit wetsuit. And when the shark finally bites into galunggong and tears it away from the pole, do not provide any resistance. Just slip that pole right back into the cage.  (The moral of the story: Do not play with your poles.)

Initially, I thought that the sharks would attack the cage in a piranha-like feeding frenzy once I baited them with the galunggong. However, these sharks were just as cunning as mermen DOMs. They just circled the cage as if testing the limits of my bladder. Then the first blacktrip reef shark lunged at the bait and ripped it off the galunggong from the pole like isaw from a barbeque stick. It was both an exhilarating and bladder-releasing moment at the same time. 

The sharks weren’t as voracious as all those derivative Jaws sequels made them out to be. In fact, the sharks that were unable to rip the fish away from the poles just swam away, letting the next shark have a go at it. It’s as if they knew that I still had 435 pieces of galunggong to go.  They didn’t mind taking turns.

But that’s not to say that there weren’t moments where I felt my testicles contract into crevices of my body that I didn’t even know I had. There were some sharks that had the audacity to rattle and bang up against the cage as if saying “Galunggong lang!? Saan yung kamatis? Yung maalat na itlog? Yung patiiiisss!!” And there was one feeding incident where the galunggong had fallen off the pole and, in a fit of undead revenge, floated back inside the cage. I was worried that some stealthy leopard shark might slip between the bars and add a little vegetarian morsel to his seafood diet. To top it all off, the most hair-loss-inducing realization of them all was that since the cage was a few feet above the aquarium floor, there were literally hundreds of sharks that were swimming underneath the cage! What if those bars beneath me were spaced wide enough part for those sharks who failed to get their fair share of galunggong!? I might suddenly look down and realize that I can no longer use my toes to count to 10!

However, after you’ve skewered your 373rd galunggong, feeding these sharks almost becomes a mechanical process Skewer. Dangle. Devour. Repeat. There are even moments when you almost forget that it is only a steel cage that separates you from hundreds of ravenous predators who want their galunggong fix. And if you think about it, there is only so much screaming you can do inside your aquanaut helmet. 

So, would I recommend the shark encounter to anybody else? If you want to test the limits of your life insurance, if you want to go temporarily deaf from the sound of your own voice, and if you want to know how urine travels inside a wetsuit, then the shark encounter is worth daing for. A lot of daing.

(On a more serious note, sharks in the wild are still being relentlessly hunted for their fins, which are the main ingredients in shark’s fin soup. Shark finning is an unnecessary practice and, as per Manila Ocean Park, recent estimates show that up to 73 million sharks are brutally killed this way every year. Let us support shark conservation by saying no to shark finning and shark fin products. For those who patronize these products, they are welcome to participate in the shark encounter as well. Without the cage. But with the slimfit wetsuit.)

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For comments, suggestions or a used wetsuit, please e-mail Ledesma.rj@gmail.com or visit www.rjledesma.net. Follow @rjled on Twitter.

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For more information on the Shark Encounter, visit www.manilaoceanpark.com.