By the way, did you know that in Bora Bora you don’t need any certification to scuba dive? That was news to me. John, who has his certification, took me on a boat with a bunch of avid divers—all men. The swarthy French guide told me I just needed to hold his hand and take the plunge with him. It started out OK, the water a brilliant aqua and warm as a bath. At the ocean floor, the bottom of our boat bobbed far above, looking small as a toy. Around us, the coral and fish sparkled like jewels. Absolutely gorgeous, if I could relax for even one second. From my guide’s frantic pantomime, I understood that he wanted me to paddle along behind him on my stomach, but there was no way I was doing that—get his back—he was the instructor! So we’re hanging out there and I’m still holding his hand and I count seven good-sized sharks circling above us—between us and the boat. I pointed up and he shrugged, C’est la vie. But sharks visiting us was not on the agenda. I look from the sharks to my guide, who was making the universal “you’re crazy signal,” winding his finger at his head—I guess he was trying to tell me I was breathing wrong, not making enough bubbles or something, I later found out. I pointed up that I wanted to return to the boat, and this went on—him making the crazy sign and me pointing— until he rolled his eyes, agreeing to let me go. He wouldn’t speak to me the rest of the day, except to say that those sharks were “nothing.” After escorting me to the surface, still holding my hand, he left me alone in the rigger, where it was scalding hot, no shade, the water too blue and suspiciously flat like in the movie “Jaws.” John was down there somewhere.

Twenty minutes later two burly guys scramble into the boat as if being chased by a predator. “There’s a helluva lot of sharks down there,” one of them says through his hard breathing.

John later admitted that he’d seen a 7-foot lemon shark (one of the few species that attack humans, I later learned from my research) skulking beneath us when he’d first jumped in— while I was still deciding whether to take the plunge with the French guy—and chose not to share this information with me.