i always look back at this photo and am grateful on how lucky i was. to get slammed onto a reef head first feeling like a truck landed on my head and shoulder is scary. my body went into shock and if i was in the ocean alone that day, things would have turned out differently. toshi-san pulled me out with the jetski, and takahashi-san drove full speed with his boat to get me to shore. it was a freaky accident in okinawa but can’t wait to go back there this typhoon season….
if you look in the far distance, you can see a small object. that small object is a very big baby whale. i was swimming up to it and was looking through my camera to get a photo, then this huge shadow from the left came in, blocked out the light, everything became dark, and i seen this 100 ton mad mamma whale coming straight for me. was i scared? no. why? because i had no time to get scared. i came up and ran to my boat, yes ran….
if you want to see amazing things underwater, you better get a good mask and snorkel. my recommendation is this $31 old school Kinugawa mask and AQA $15 snorkel. it’s cheap, it’s durable, and it’s proven for 30 years for me. i spent hundreds of dollars trying out the new state of the art masks but always come back to this one. this is old school, and i’m old school so we work good together…
