Mike in the Wild

I am not a thrill seeker.  I eschew zip lining; I'd rather hide in a blind in the same treetops to actually see the birds that others speedily glide past.  As a child I avoided roller coasters in favor of Ferris wheels where I could enjoy the scenery from a bird's eye view and at a very human pace.  So I'm wondering how I reached a point on my 55th birthday where I deliberately chose to swim with sharks.  Most of the Bahamas lie above the Tropic of Cancer but it still has a mild winter climate that is more tropical than temperate.  Nowhere is this more evident than out on the coral reefs that encircle the nation's more than seven hundred islands and cays.  Diving and snorkeling, not to mention sport fishing, are a mainstay of its important tourist economy.   So on a stop in Nassau on New Providence Island during my birthday cruise I was eager to snorkel on a teeming and picturesque reef. Stuart Cove's Dive Bahamas offers fully escorted dives a...