Dancing with Sharks

What leaves Zenato astounded is that despite the pain, the sharks keep returning to her and want the hooks removed. She talks about Scrunchy who stayed in her arms for a long time while she wrestled with a tough hook inside his mouth.

Born in Italy, Zenato grew up in Africa. She inherited her love for the sea from her parents and has fond memories of swimming in the sea with her dad or mum. Her father, who worked in the military, often shared stories of his diving expedition. “His stories spoke of a live sea, full of creatures and amazing encounters. There were no dangerous monsters but just beauty and discovery and fun,” she says.

Initially, Zenato had a career in languages — she speaks Italian, English, German, French and Spanish — and in hotel management, but her life changed when she first set her eyes on the sharks in the Bahamas. Moving to the island and starting as a scuba instructor, she found her life’s calling in the Bahamas with Ben Rose, UNEXCO Guide and Marine Expert, as a mentor.

“With Ben you learn one of the most important rules about life: keep being curious, investigate your curiosity, explore, experience and share.”

Twenty five years later, Zenato continues to live in the Bahamas. “Fishing sharks is now forbidden in the Bahamas as this country is a shark sanctuary, a battle we won back in 2011,” reveals Zenato who is part of the Bahamas 20/20 project — a mission to protect more marine life.

Reminding us that the ocean belongs to its marine creatures, she says humans make a common mistake. “We give animals a human interpretation of their behaviour. So sharks end up doing vicious attacks or having aggressive behaviour. Their mating is considered violent and abusive. Sharks are just being the way nature created them. My dogs don’t have rude table manners because they slurp their food out of their bowls. Nature designed them to eat the way they do. Sharks eat in many different ways but there is nothing vicious about these creatures.”

While mainstream films have depicted sharks as dangerous, cold blooded animals out to attack humans, Zenato’s videos posted online reveal a different reality. Some of them show Zenato standing on the ocean bed with a food container while the sharks swim and swarm around her but never attempt to bite her, looking for the fish that she will soon give them.

“Isn’t that fascinating? This is something we could not do with another animal. Would we have a chance with animals in the Savannah? Our fear stems out of our ignorance,” she says.

Knowledge about sharks and their role in the ocean can only transform our fear into fascination for them. There are more than 500 species of sharks — the smallest one can fit into the palm of the hand and the largest one is roughly the size of a mini bus and feeds on plankton.

“We need to move away from this need to dominate everything in this world,” says Zenato. “We are actually invasive and destructive. We need to learn to share and with sharing sometimes means also stepping back.”

Zenato wears a specially designed chain mail suit manufactured by Neptunic Industries (Florida) while working in close proximity with sharks but not while scuba diving or swimming. Depending on the size of the suit, it can weigh nearly 10 kg.

“It is not that heavy,” she explains. “People in dry-suits wear that kind of weight but the difference is that once in a chainmail suit you can’t just ditch it like a weight belt and any emergency has to be dealt with the extra weight on.”

Calling it “the barrier that allows me to drop barriers between me and the sharks, it is akin to a seat belt to be of use in an emergency,” she says.

Zenato’s suit is shaped to her body and moves like liquid metal. It does not stretch and is flexible. It prevents accidental bites when a shark misses the fish and gets her hand by mistake. And, when it bites on the suit, the texture makes it realise that this is not something soft and edible. The suit also prevents the tip of the shark’s tooth from getting through.