Fear and loathing in the sea

Ah, summer in New Zealand, the sun, the long days on the beach and swimming in the sea. Where, if you’re anything like me, you can spend the whole time worrying about what’s sharing the water.

When people discover I grew up in Raglan, home of the famous left-hand break, the first question they ask is inevitably "do you surf?"

Well no, I don’t. I was always too scared of what might be lurking in the sea to be brave enough to learn. My stepfather’s stories of shark and stingray encounters (which I now suspect were heavily embroidered) did not help.

My brother Ben surfs though, and laughed like a drain when he saw what passes as surf at Wellington’s Lyall Bay. Despite being a non-surfer, as a Raglan girl it always bemuses me slightly when I see 50 surfers vying for waves that wouldn’t prompt those in my hometown to even get out their boards. But I suppose you take what you can get.

So, with this fear of what’s lurking in the depths of the ocean, triathlon, with its required open water training, was not the most logical sport to take up.

I’m almost glad Wellington hasn’t been warm enough this season to guilt me into getting in the harbour for some open water swim training. Almost.

Open water training is necessary, so I do it, but it’s always a case of mind over matter. This is because even as I’m enjoying it, (and I do) there’s always that slight doubt at the back of my mind about what could be underneath me.

Hopefully I’ll never know. I prefer not being able to see what’s in the water around me. This makes Oriental Bay a better swim choice than Island Bay, which freaks me out with its closer proximity to open water, and thus, in my mind, more chance of nasties lurking. I have no idea if this is based on any sort of reputable science but I don't care.

Oh-so-hilarious friends telling me I look like a seal in my wetsuit or recounting the details of some documentary they saw on sharks do not help.

It’s not just the idea of a shark taking a nibble on me that scares me. I’m not particularly partial to the notion of stingrays either, or nasty tentacled jellyfish.

Mock me all you like, but I like to think my fears are grounded in reality. Admittedly, meeting a great white in Wellington’s inner harbour is not highly likely. I probably had more chance in Nelson’s harbour and it didn’t happen.

However, being a big brave girl’s blouse, if it can’t hurt me, I’m not scared by it. So the year Wellington suffered a plague of the clear jellyfish, I swam right through them, because while gross, they didn’t sting. They were everywhere – I vividly remember putting my hand through one and having another wrap itself around my face.

But unlike my male friend, I didn’t run shrieking from the water because of them.

I’ve never seen Jaws and I never will, because silly or not, I know if I do I’ll never get back in the water. Seeing this online scared me enough.

My near-pathological fear is why I love Lake Taupo. I won’t find anything more dreadful than a few trout in there, because I hear the taniwha is shy.

Am I alone in my dread of what could be in the water? Any other slightly irrational fears you’d like to share?

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