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Travel  SUNDAY,  FEBRUARY  17, 2019  .   SECTION F   EZ EE

NAVIGATOR

Is airport screening technology about to change for the better? F2

AIRLINES

Here’s what you need to know before flying with a wheelchair. F5

JAPAN

A bar crawl in Tokyo, where the simple highball becomes a work of art. F6

BY ANDREA SACHS

The caveat: They had to order food, too.)But Provo doesn’t need cocktails to stay up

late. Many of the BYU campus museumsremain open till 9 p.m. on weekdays, as do theshops and restaurants. On a Thursday night, inthe dead of winter, I had to stand on tiptoes toread the chalkboard of flavors at Rockwell IceCream Co. The following evening, I set out tohear live folk music at Pioneer Book but endedup in line for country dancing lessons and laterat a crafts table surrounded by fragrant oilsand paints. (These activities do seem to sup-port Provo’s controversial nickname, HappyValley, and I did feel fairly joyful ending the daywith new toiletries and dance moves.)

The culinary scene, meanwhile, is partiallyinfluenced by the Mormon tradition of inter-national missionary work. Members return toProvo with expanded palates. You can playspin-the-globe in the historic downtown dis-trict, stopping on pho, Belgian frites, sushi,Indian, Czech pastries, Mexican fruit pops orkronuts in a French bakery. Of course, thenatural attractions that preceded the pioneersare equally integral to the Provo experience.Depending on the season, you can fly-fish onthe Provo River, boat on Utah Lake, and ski,snowboard and hike in the Wasatch Range.Bring a date or go solo — Mother Naturedoesn’t care about your relationship status.

PROVO CONTINUED ON F3

YOU’RE GOING WHERE?

ProvoIn Utah’s “Happy Valley,” two influences are

impossible to miss — mountains and Mormons

“This is a great activity for date night,” ayoung employee at the Soap Factory in Provoinformed me when I walked in as a party ofone. I looked around the room and saw manycouples making their own soap (for theirfuture His and Her sinks?). Then I noticed apenguin mold in the bin, and I found mycompanion for the night.

The Utah Valley city is not your typicaldestination or college town; it has a long andstrong affiliation with the Church of JesusChrist of Latter-day Saints. Two of its mostprominent institutions are Brigham YoungUniversity and the Provo City Center Temple,both of which are ringed by majestic peaks.

Provo was named after the French Cana-dian trapper Etienne Provost and settled byMormons in 1849. In 1875, Brigham Youngestablished an academy that rose to universitystatus at the turn of the 20th century. Nearly90 percent of the population is made up ofmembers of the Mormon Church and manyresidents are current or former BYU students,a distinction that has shaped the city’s culture.For instance, Mormons do not consume alco-hol, and the absence of bars and social drink-ing is notable in a mountainous region thatattracts outdoorsy types with happy-hour hab-its. (I spotted two bars downtown and over-heard one group of friends searching for wine,which they located at the Black Sheep Cafe.

PHOTOS BY EVAN COBB FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

BY ERIN E. WILLIAMS

The boat rose and fell relent-lessly, one ocean swell after an-other. I leaned over its stern, fix-ing my eyes on the decoy floating afew yards away. I had watched itfor hours, barely glancing at theelephant seals hauled out on thenearby island.

In my eagerness to see whomight nibble on the bobbing ob-ject, I was reluctant to look away

for even a moment.I was on a day-long expedition

to the Farallon Islands, about 30miles west of San Francisco. Thecraggy islands are a familiar sightfor Bay Area beachgoers on a clearday, but most people don’t knowthat they support vast seabirdcolonies and mammals such assea lions, dolphins, elephant sealsand humpback, blue and graywhales.

The Farallones are also home to

some of the largest great whitesharks on the planet.

My husband Andrew, ourfriend Neil and I joined a dozenbiologists, volunteers and wildlifewatchers for the trip — part ofSharktober, an annual Bay Areacelebration of the great whites’return from their oceanic migra-tion each September through No-vember. Along with land-basededucational events, the excur-sions immerse aspiring seafarers

in the Farallon Islands’ naturalhistory and marine ecosystem.

Shark Stewards, a nonprofitgroup that promotes sound stew-ardship for sharks and all marinelife, organizes the events andtours. Its director, marine biolo-gist David McGuire, led our expe-dition as one of several weekendday trips during Sharktober.

We boarded the Silver Fox, achartered 50-foot fishing boat, atFisherman’s Wharf in San Fran-

cisco. Although thick Novemberfog dulled the sunrise, the fore-cast was less volatile than usual. Istill pulled on my burliest cold-weather clothing, including a wa-terproof jacket and pants.

The Farallones are fierce. Be-cause of savage weather, perilouscurrents and ragged rocks, theGreater Farallones National Ma-rine Sanctuary estimates thatmore than 400 shipwrecks might

SHARKS CONTINUED ON F4

A stop off the San Francisco coast, on the way to the ‘white shark cafe’

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: A bus passes by the Provo City Center Temple, one of the most prominent institutions in the city.

Silversmith James Lund works on a custom pendant at the Art Studio at Sundance Mountain Resort. Green chile stew is among

the dishes available at Black Sheep Cafe. Pauline Zvornkovic gives a goat a kiss after her yoga session at Shade Home and Garden.

F4 EZ EE THE WASHINGTON POST . SUNDAY,  FEBRUARY  17 ,  2019

time for a final errand: a searchfor a friend’s camera. Commercialdiver and documentary filmmak-er Ron Elliott lost it when a sharkbit him on the hand while he wasfilming a month before. This wasthe only bite Ron has suffered in400 shark encounters during dec-ades of diving the Farallones.

The remotely operated vehiclepoked around in underwaternooks and crannies but did notlocate the camera. We turnedback to the coast.

We sat on the bow during thereturn trip. Hundreds of maroonsea nettle jellyfish drifted underthe boat, and dolphin pods fol-lowed our wake. I lost track of theday’s whale count after a dozen.Neil occasionally leaned acrossAndrew and asked me, “Do youremember when we saw thatshark and Andrew missed it?”

My head bobbed up and downlike a decoy.

travel@washpost.com

Williams is a writer based in Nevada. Her website is erinewilliams.com.

comes to sharks, that our hairstands on end and our skin tin-gles. I had no such premonition. Ididn’t feel like a shark encounterwas imminent. All I felt werenausea and dimming hope.

Maybe that’s why I was dumb-struck when I heard a splash.

It was over before I understoodwhat was happening. I turned tothe sound. A gigantic shape brokethe water just 10 feet from theboat.

A great white shark. Clearly not fooled by the decoy,

it bumped it with its nose andcruised by. The skin on its backwas a beautiful smooth, liquid,metallic gray. After a few seconds,it slid back underwater.

Overcome with excitement,Neil and I shouted expletiveswhile pointing at the disappear-ing eddies.

McGuire confirmed the sight-ing, and everyone cheered.

This was the moment that An-drew emerged from below deck.He had only been gone for aminute or two. “No,” he said. “Youdidn’t see a shark.”

I nodded. Now it was his turn tocurse.

I’d like to think that I saw theiconic shape of its dorsal fin slicethrough the water. It happened soquickly, it’s tough to be certain.The shark appeared colossal tomy inexperienced eye, but McGuire later confirmed that itwas somewhat small comparedwith the Farallones’ largest greatwhites.

“Most sharks here are at least14 feet long, and they can reach20 feet,” he said. “It was maybe12 feet.”

Daylight was waning. It was

“Yeah, that’s definitely going toattract a shark,” said Neil, rollinghis eyes.

The motion-sickness medica-tion was losing its battle with theswells and the elephant seals’ spectacular stink. Andrew and Ifelt seasick.

The three of us watched thedecoy from the stern. Every oncein a while, I fixed my eyes on theisland to quell nausea.

We lingered while McGuire andhis team operated the robot.Whales breached off the bow andseabird after seabird buzzed theboat. After a couple of hours,Andrew had to take a break. Hedisappeared into the cabin.

Some people say that we havean innate sixth sense when it

disturbing them or altering theirbehavior. The team records andshares data — including with thepublic through educational out-reach and as part of NationalGeographic’s Open Explorer pro-gram.

“These are everyone’s sanctu-aries,” he said. “If people don’texperience them, it’s harder toappreciate them and understandthe importance of protection.”

An intern dropped the littlerobot overboard. It scooted awayand disappeared while McGuireoperated it from a tablet.

The decoy was getting too closeto the boat. I followed McGuire’srequest to pull its line as weturned, jerking it to mimic a pan-icked seal.

topped summit. For years, hardyscientists have taken shifts re-searching and living on the island.

I smelled the elephant sealsbefore I saw them squabblingwith each other under the cliffs.They are one of the sharks’ keyfood sources. Each fall, between15 and 50 sharks arrive — most ofthem large and all of them hungry.They’re part of a population ofseveral hundred that scientistshave identified from Mexico toBritish Columbia.

A couple of months later, fat-tened on elephant seals and sealions, the sharks depart the Faral-lones. Some travel to the “whiteshark cafe” in the mid-Pacific, agathering place where scientistssuspect that they feed and breed.Others swim to Mexico. Theirround-trip migration can ap-proach 5,000 miles.

On the deck, a graduate stu-dent named Nikki prepared a de-coy: a child’s stuffed black wet suitwith dive fins extending from itslegs. Although attracting sharks isforbidden in the protected waters,Shark Stewards holds a permit forthe lure.

Nikki chucked it over the sideof the boat, where it made a fairimpersonation of an injured seal.But would a shark fall for theruse?

“We need something that lookslike a food source, since sharksaren’t interested in humans,”McGuire said. “That said, sharksare pretty smart. If they see itonce, they probably won’t investi-gate it twice.”

During the trips, McGuire andhis team employ a toaster-size,remotely operated vehicle to ob-serve sharks underwater without

surround the isolated islands. Lo-cal Miwok referred to them as the“Islands of the Dead,” and mari-ners called them the “Devil’sTeeth.” Compounding the sense ofdanger is the sharks’ fearsomereputation, which only now isbeginning to recover from dec-ades of misperception and de-monization.

The Farallones are a marinesanctuary protected by a numberof state and federal designations.As a result, they’re a haven for atleast 25 endangered and threat-ened species, more than a dozennesting seabird species and 36marine mammal species. And, ofcourse, the sharks.

We puttered into San FranciscoBay. Fog and water congealed intoan indistinct smudge, dampeningvisibility and sound. A containership lurked in the mist, occasion-ally breaking the eerie stillnesswith a horn blast. We were alreadyin another world.

As if to emphasize the transi-tion, harbor porpoises leaped outof the water before we even sawthe Golden Gate Bridge. Eventual-ly, its pylons rose beside us anddisappeared into the gloom. Wepassed Point Bonita lighthouse atthe bay’s entrance. Periscopingsea lions eyed the boat, and brownpelicans flew overhead.

We were surprisingly close toMarin County’s Muir Beach whenwe saw our first humpback. Itexhaled, and the breeze wafted acomically sour plume from itsblowhole into our faces.

A tail rose from the water: aCalifornia gray whale headingsouth on one of the world’s lon-gest migrations. We turned westinto the Gulf of the Farallones,riding against 10-foot swellsthrough the clearing fog. I silentlyprayed to the motion-sicknesspatch stuck behind my ear.

We rolled up and down theswells and rubbernecked at whales for 2½ hours until wereached the Farallones’ graniteisland ridge, once part of a South-ern California mountain range.Ocean waves thundered into jag-ged, sky-scraping spires.

Around Southeast Farallon Is-land, thousands of commonmurres circled in the air. “This isNorth America’s largest seabirdcolony,” McGuire explained. “Inspringtime, more than 300,000seabirds nest here.”

The boat idled in a cove. Al-though the islands are off-limitsto the public, two strikingly deso-late houses sit below a lighthouse-

SHARKS FROM F1

Spending time with migratory sharks

THE WASHINGTON POST

Source: GEBCO

SantaCruz

SanJose

Napa

SanFrancisco

C A L I F O R N I A

P a c i f i cO c e a n

30 MILES

FarallonIslands

BEN MARGOT/ASSOCIATED PRESS

If you goWHERE TO STAYHotel Diva

440 Geary St.

415-885-0200

hoteldiva.com

Modern hotel conveniently located in Union Square. Rooms from $160.

WHAT TO DOShark Stewards

415-350-3790

sharkstewards.org

Educational wildlife expeditions open to the public. Trips emphasize natural history and conservation of marine wildlife, including sharks. Open to adults and children over 10 September through November. Day trips run from 7 a.m. until approximately 4:30 p.m. From $150.

INFORMATIONfarallones.noaa.gov

E.W.

ERIC RISBERG/ASSOCIATED PRESS

PETER WINCH/NOAA GREATER FARALLONES NATIONAL MARINE SANCTUARY

TOP: “In springtime, more than 300,000 seabirds nest here,” marine biologist David McGuire said of the Farallon Islands. MIDDLE: Visitors can smell the elephant seals before they see them under the cliffs. ABOVE: Each fall, between 15 and 50 great white sharks arrive at the islands.