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