BLOOD IN
BELIZE'S BLUE HOLE
After land roving Belize’s steamy inland jungles for
two weeks, I headed offshore for its spectacular coral
jungles. By now, I could use the cushy-comfy,
spoil-me-rotten resorts of Ambergris Cay, the
Caribbean island miles from the mainland that Belizean
Travel Minister Glenn Godfrey called the most
overdeveloped area of the country. When I hit the sand
streets of San Pedro, I knew this fishing village
right next to the world’s second longest barrier reef
wasn’t exactly Robin Leach-land.
Fundamental and unpretentious, the cay was like the
rest of this Central American country just south of
the Yucatan border. It was also the springboard to my
real adventure; an overnight excursion to Belize’s
Blue Hole, a circular coral reef sitting inside a
circular coral reef, or atoll; a mere 50 mile cruise
west of here. Two days of scuba diving and one
glorious night at sea would smooth out the body-kinks
as nicely as a hot iron on a silk skirt. Only,
Belize’s image of rough ‘n rugged is shot
through-and-through: The 40 knot winds accompanying
our 5 a.m. departure triggered seas that pounded the
boat with the gusto of the Chinese Olympic Team on a
ping pong ball. The three people I had met on
Ambergris Cay, and who chartered this retrofitted
shrimp boat with me agreed…Belize’s pocked highways
were Cosmo-complexion-smooth by comparison.
But once inside the protected water of the coral reef
atolls, the swells were manageable; the diving
pristine. A 40-foot dive into Glover’s Reef atoll was
upstaged only by a wall dive at Lighthouse Reef atoll
that evening. If the 140-foot plunge into the Blue
Hole the next day even matched the surrealism of
hanging suspended over a wall of coral that jackknifed
into a bottomless blue fluid then the 50 mile “body
beating cruise” would be justified.
Over a hearty dinner aboard our seafaring mobile home,
my dive buddy, Scott, a young investment banker from
Manhattan, asked why I had skipped the evening’s last
dive. I explained I had unexpectedly started my
period, and was feeling a bit drained of energy.
Furthermore, I had to ration the few tampons I had
with me. Without swallowing his mouthful of black
beans and rice, Scott locked eyes with me and asked
warily, “Isn’t that dangerous?”
“It isn’t always fun, and it aggravates me that my
body took this inopportune moment to go into its
monthly cycle,” I replied. “But, no, it is not
dangerous.”
From what I had learned of Scott, he seemed to be
sensitive, bright and mature, so his next remark
short-circuited my brainwaves: “Sharks!”
Recovering from the surprise and trying not to show
amusement at his very genuine concern (a concern that
has occurred to other male divers, no doubt), I
reassured Scott that, while sharks have the most
highly developed olfactory organs of any creature on
earth, detecting blood inside my body was no different
than detecting blood inside his.
But when I returned to the States and shared this
story with a friend who camps often in the Rockies,
she said her gynecologist had cautioned her about
camping out when she menstruated. The critters were
different in her scenario – bears – but the concern
was the same: Menstrual blood might attract
potentially dangerous animals.
Time for research: A library check at the American
College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists in
Washington, D.C. produced nothing fruitful. And Bill
Borchardt, a naturalist and instructor at the St.
Louis Zoo, said he knew of no research on the topic,
although park rangers advise women to wrap used
tampons in plastic containers when disposing them.
Theory being, bears won’t be able to smell the blood
and mistake it for some dead animal. Makes sense. But
does that mean if, instead of using a tampon, a woman
uses a pad, a bear can smell blood on her body? No
answer.
Borchardt did say, however, rangers suggest not using
perfume or cologne in the wild. Which, of course,
raises the question that has plagued men and women for
centuries: “What does the sweet smell of bottled water
have to do with flowing hemoglobin and faster flowing
hormones?” Maybe the rangers are trying to tell us
ANYTHING attracts bears.
Dr. Sam Gruber, director of the Shark Institute at the
University of Miami, offered a little more insight.
While no formal studies exist on the attraction of
sharks to human menstrual blood, he knows that women
and female sharks have almost identical hormonal
molecular structures. Seems that after hundreds of
millions of years of evolution, Mother Nature knows
you don’t fix something that works. So Dr. Gruber
says, theoretically, a male shark is attracted to the
same chemical smell in females in general, sharks or
humans.
Not exactly comforting. But wait, there’s more. It is
not hemoglobin, but rather amino acids – or the
steroid hormones – exuded in the natural flow of
female sharks’ menstrual blood that attracts the
males. This flow is obviously unimpeded by a tampon,
which Dr. Gruber says, equalizes men and women in the
water during our menstrual cycles. Swimming without a
tampon inserted increases the odds for a shark attack.
But wait, there’s still more. Of the reported shark
attacks on people world wide, the annual average that
results in death is only 100, with 90 of these attacks
on men.
Dr. Gruber doesn’t know why odds are stacked against
men, but stats like these crystallize the message:
Ladies, avoid men in the ocean, and count your lucky
stars you’re a woman because you have more chance of
winning the Florida lottery than you have being
attacked by a shark. Period.
By Barbara Bowers © 1992
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