Diving with sharks

Hello all,
Yesterday was a fantastic diving day. We did 3 dives in one day around the area north of Santa Cruz Island where we are staying. It was an early start and I was quite nervous. I went with an American from Texas who is staying at the same homestay as me and has learnt to dive since beig here too. It was really fun to go with someone who I knew. She has also done further qualifications including her 'rescue diver' qualifications and she got to try them out on me. More about that later...
I was definitely the novice on the trip, and it certainly showed when I managed to lose the dive mask before the first dive! We had stopped the boat and were getting ready to go in. I had spat in my mask (a necessary activity to stop it from fogging up) and leant over the side of the boat to dip it in the water to rinse it. I obviously was not holding it tight enough and it fell out of my hands. I kind of went "oh, no", and the divemaster put on his mask and jumped in after it, but it was too late. It was gone. I apologised when he got out of the water, but I don't thin k he was overly impressed. He had a look on his face that kind of said "oh, so we have one of THOSE people today...". To make matters worse, the mask I was using, and had just lost, was the owner of the shops own mask. Needless to say I felt rather bad about that. Luckily they carry spare kit and I was handed the old mask that had black gunk growing around the edges. But I didn't complain. I was just happy they had brought spares. I imagine I am not the first person ever to do that.
So we finished kitting up and went over the edge, we descended and the visibility was a lot less than on my previous dives. Which worried me a little, I spent the day chasing other peoples flippers. We saw a white tipped reef shark not long after we got down, and I think I sucked up about half of my tank of air when we saw it. Trying to control myself, but it just swam on by. It was probably about 3 metres away and about 2 metres long, and not fussed at all by us. (I was rather less calm and collected). We carried on swimming and my left foot flipper felt a little loose so I looked down and realised that the part that goes round the back of my heel had slipped of, so I could have potentially lost a second piece of equipment. I had visions of me arriving back at the boat in my wetsuit and little else!! So I tried to fix it, and Amber, my dive buddy came over and wafted my hands away, she sorted it out for me and felt really good after for using her rescue skills (although her instructor for the course just laughed later when she told him she had rescued someone).
So, reattached to my flipper, we carried on. The divemaster was just ahead and waving the mask I had lost at me. Someone had just found it. I was so grateful. Grateful that I hadn't completely lost the owners mask and also grateful that I didn't have to buy him a new one!
During that dive we also saw a sea turtle really close. We were just coming up over a bit of rock and he was resting on the other side. I think we disturbed him and he went away.
We also saw 'galapagos garden eels'. Eels were not something I was overly fussed about seeing, but these ones are quite funny, they look like sticks sticking out of the sand, but when you go nearer they go back into the sand. What you see of them is maybe about 10-15cm long and a few centimetres wide.
On the second dive we went to another islet which above water is basically a beach full of sea lions. While we were spending time above water, we saw some of them having a little argument. They make a real racket. When we did the second dive, one of them came over to see us. They are really amazing creatures. They are so graceful and fast in the water and they are really playful. I just stayed quite still and he kept swimming around us. One moment you think they are gone, and then they are right in front of your face looking you in the eye. They come close enough that if you reached out you could touch them. I didn't reach out. I just kept still, breathed and held my regulator in my mouth. When they are swimming around you their heads move in lots of directions, but their eyes are always watching you. They are quite amazing.
The last dive was off another islet, but this one was sheer cliff and before we went down we did a tour of it looking at the birds, crabs, sea lions etc that we could see above water. On that dive we saw everything again and went inside a small cave. Not my favourite thing...
I ahve just been to the dive shop to try and get my logbook signed and get the picture, but the guy was not there again. I will go when I get back and try to put some of the pictures up early next week.
I have one more dive trip booked. I figured that I saw smallish things on the first dives I did, things my size or a little bigger yesterday, maybe I can cope with big things next time. Bring on the manta rays, hammer heads, whale sharks and humpbacks!!