We managed to sneak a few minutes of time from the ever busy Cristina Zenato – dive operator manager, PADI Course Director, NSS_CDS Full Cave Instructor, EFR Instructor Trainer, TDI Extended Range Instructor, Advanced Nitrox with Decompression Procedures Instructor and Shark Expert – to get to know who she is and what made her fall in love with diving in the first place!
What made you try scuba diving? Was it always something you wanted to do or did you stumble upon it?
I come from a family of the ocean, both mom and dad always loved the water and always took me with them to it. Furthermore my dad was an ex military diver and used to talk about his experiences and share these images of his diving with me. I used to flip through the pages of his photo album and dream one day to be like him. My dream job was to be an underwater scuba ranger, somebody who would roam the reef and tell divers what to do and what not to do in order to protect them. But between the dream and life there was reality, so I went on to study hotel management and languages and tourism business and only for a series of fortunate chances (too long to share) I ended up having a chance to become a certified diverwhile in the Bahamas and decide in less then ten days to go back home in Italy and drop everything to make diving my lifeand The Bahamas my home.
What made you fall in love with it?
I have always been in love with the water, the ocean, the sea creatures, the salt, the sounds of the waves by the shore, taking my first breath underwater made me fall in love with it, being able to finally be under for a longer period of time than what my lungs allowed me only fueled further my passion for the ocean. I used to dive and wave at the ocean floor every time I have to come up, afraid it would be the last time I would see it, despite the fact this was my job and I could go back every day, several times per day.
Why sharks?
Because I grew up with the notion that there is no vicious animals, that they ALL play a role in the eco systems of the world and that we need to understand them if we want to share with them this precious space. I find sharks beautiful, perfect, unique and extremely vulnerable and they need voices. Not just one voice, many voices, they need us to speak for them, to be their voice and their defenders.
“Bodyguards” – Photograph by Michael Kazma
What fascinates you most about sharks? What is the most interesting thing you have discovered working with them?
Their nature and their resilience, the uniqueness of each and every one of them, from their shape, to where they live and how they live and reproduce. When I look at them swimming I find them soothing, they reassure me the oceans still have a chance, they are hypnotizing. Sharks don’t judge and don’t discriminate, they are far from human negative feelings, they are simply sharks and once you learn about them you realize they are the opposite of everything we have ever heard.
How did you find out that you could induce the relaxation state in sharks? Did it just happen or did you learn it from a mentor?
It is a little bit of both. The first person and my dear mentor to feed and touch sharks is Ben Rose, a gentleman still living on the island I come to call Uncle Ben. He was the one that started the idea of feeding sharks and also by accident realized that sharks reacted to our touch. From that I simply continued and built upon it. Ben always felt I had a special relationship and feeling with sharks so he handed me the program and I have been taking care of it since 1996. I built relationships with sharks that I know now for ten years, sharks who others notice they come to me first even if the food is in the hands of a different feeder. With time I built a relationship and tried to expand the boundaries to where we are now.
Many people have said you speak a sixth language, “Shark,” do you feel that you can communicate with them?
I love that idea, I don’t deny it makes me smile. I do believe I communicate with them, but not in the sense of verbal or mental communication. I do believe communication is beyond the boundaries of language or understanding, it is a connection. And I know for a fact sharks feel the difference between the people in the water, so maybe I can’t communicate with them in a traditional definition but they know when it’s me and when it’s somebody else. Through my body language, perhaps the way I breathe and my heart beats they can also detect the different state of mind. When I see them, I am happy, I smile inside and outside…can they feel that? Is that how we communicate? Maybe…
What’s the biggest challenge you’ve faced in your career under water? And how did you overcome it?
In all honestly I feel that the biggest challenge has been out of the water, in the industry. Now I am generalizing of course, through the years I had phenomenal mentors both men and women who didn’t distinguish between being a female or a male. These were the people who believed in me, who taught me, pushed me and supported me. To them, so many to list here, my biggest gratitude, with me I carry a little piece of each of their teaching. In general, however, it was a very male dominated industry with some strong cliche’ I had to fight to come through. At first I tried to adapt and hide the girl factor, but I never gave up and never gave into the cliche’ either. I pushed forward, I took energy and support by those who didn’t make this a problem, I supported other women coming through and then one day I realized I was not anymore the only female on the boat. Your site is a testament to the changes I am seeing. We need ScubaGirls and women to empower women. This not to bash men, but to show women out there that we can do everything we put out minds to do, that there are no written roles and that the opportunities are as big as the oceans we want to discover.
Is there somewhere in the world that you haven’t yet dived, but really want to?
I honestly don’t have a bucket list. I could sit here and list a world of places, but I prefer opportunities to present themselves and if I can will take them and dive them, if not, well next life time. This has allowed me to dive and see some unique places, like the cave of the Nullarbor desert in Australia or being invited to dive where the first cave dive was ever made in Wooky Hole in the U.K. If I have to list one place, I would say Orda Cave, Russia, and under an iceberg.
What are your personal and professional goals for the future?
My primary goal is going to be towards education with the scope of conservation. At the present moment I am writing a book. It comes from my experience with sharks but it goes a little over. Can’t share much about the content as it is still a project in the making. Professionally and personally in a way go together. I am not planning drastic changes, I have few more places I want to dive and few more projects I want to take part into. I feel my voice for sharks is in a good place, I have seen more voices for sharks growing, inspired by my work and that makes me very happy. Although I plan to continue my educational work about shark conservation, I have been working on expanding it to include two other thematics very dear to my heart: plastic pollution, completely related with shark and ocean conservation and the support and growth of women in diving. This will still be side by side with my cave exploration and conservation work, as well related with the conservation of fresh water, mangroves areas, nursery grounds and ultimately sharks and oceans.
How can ScubaGirls get involved to help protect the sharks?
If you could give one piece of advice to new scuba divers, what would it be?
Never stop learning. There is a world of amazing experiences as vast and as deep as the oceans that we are allowed to see thanks to scuba diving. Do not stop at the surface. Try new ways of diving, explore new environments, seek out instructors and people who love to dive not just for work but for passion, share time with them, connect to their energy, they are out there, in the world, ready to share all they can with you and anybody else willing to listen and learn. And remember that the same dive site is never the same place no matter how many times you can dive it, it will always have something new and unique for you to discover and appreciate.
Is there anything else that you want to share?
Two small suggestions I learned for myself:
1. Follow your heart. We hear this all the time and many of us want to, after we graduate, after the Phd, after we have a job security, after, after, after…time runs away fast and one day there is no after to be followed. I am honestly saying it coming from having left everything behind, my education, my job, my opportunities to a career to start where my heart was the happiest, where the life style was the one I wanted, where I would wake up eager to go to work. I have done this over and over again and each time come back with a bigger smile on my face. Your heart knows best.
2. The worst mistake is to never make any. We always learn and grow from them. If you don’t make mistakes, you are not learning and like a great person I admire a lot says: “You can have ten years experience or ten one year experiences” – James Morgan, meaning, if you never try, make mistakes and grow, you will always repeat the same actions and learn nothing new.
Ask yourself this: What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?
