NO WORRIES?
OK. Back to the life expectancy thing in Australia. I’m sure the statistics are correct. They do live longer, but it's because these people have to keep aerobic all day to avoid the deadly snakes and spiders — and the crocodiles and scorpions and Dengue-fever carrying mosquitoes. I read about all the Australian creatures eager to kill you in Bill Bryson’s A Sunburned Country and thought it was hilarious, but not so much, now that I’m here. We were outside Cairns admiring the incredible beaches and wondering why we saw so many Australians in Bali where the beaches were crowded and no more beautiful.
Here's the answer:
Box jellyfish stings can cause death. They are abundant from October to June, though there are netted areas protected from them. “The danger is that we’ve netted some of them into the protected area,” the man at the information booth told me, “but they're only close to shore. No worries if you go out to the reef.” So we took a huge, high-speed boat an hour-and-a-half out on the reef. There, we suited up with wetsuits that covered every inch of our bodies that the masks didn’t cover just in case some jelly fish had not received the memo about staying close to shore.
Before I got in the water I needed to be convinced there was no danger of shark attacks. “That danger is way overrated,” Alyssa, our guide assured me. “There hasn’t been an attack in years.” Here I am in the water when I was still having a good time, and, yes, that is a rubber starfish given to me for the photo op.
In a little while, the guide started waving her hands to get our attention. She took off her mask and shouted “Look we’ve been joined! Look down!” “LOOK DOWN! RIGHT NOW! LOOK DOWN!” I looked down. Directly below me was an immense fish. I mean enormous, the size of a coffee table or a cow -- and it was right below me. “This is remarkable!” Alyssa shouted. “You are so lucky. This just doesn’t happen. Look at its mouth. Those teeth are for crushing crustaceans. You see how he has it open all the time ready to get its prey?” Yes. I had noticed that, along with the long pointy teeth. Then, after a pause during which we were all floating motionless in paralytic fear, she said: “DON’T TOUCH THIS FISH. WHATEVER YOU DO, DO NOT TOUCH THIS FISH! DO YOU HEAR ME?” I did. I heard her. “Now look down.” She was looking right at me because I was not looking down. I was looking for an escape route, but not one that would involve an upsetting movement. “Put your mask in the water. AND CALM DOWN! Don’t excite the fish." She spoke loudly with very measured words. "You are having a once-in-a-life-time experience. Relax. You're fine as long as you don’t arouse him.” "Arouse him?" I thought. I don't want to have sex with this fish. I just don't want to be his lunch. I put my mask in the water as told. The fish was about four inches from me. I slowly treaded water, trying not to move. And then it actually bumped into me. I mean it really bumped into me and looked straight into my eyes with its rolling fly like eyes. It just stopped, floating right there, hanging out with me, doing a stare down contest. “This is so exciting,” the instructor shouted. Later, on the boat, when my heart rate had returned to normal and I regained the ability to speak, I told Alyssa I thought it looked like a grouper. “Yeah,” she said, “or maybe a mackerel.” The next morning, I googled sharks and giant fish in Australia. This was the headline that came up first: April 3, 2014: Aussie Woman 'Taken by a Shark' 'COMMUNITY IN SHOCK' AFTER EXPERIENCED SWIMMER KILLED AT POPULAR BEACH And this was the next, from March 18, 2014: Aussie Girl, 10, Survives Shark Attack OR MAYBE A MACKEREL; OFFICIALS AREN'T SURE ABOUT SOURCE OF HAND INJURY That night I sat with a martini, recovering — a twenty dollar martini that hardly covered the olive -- another bit of trouble in paradise.