A hammerhead shark from the book "The Complete Idiots Guide to Sharks" by Tucson author Mary L. Peachin (below). Because of their odd-shaped heads, hammerhead sharks can sense movement all around them and have an extaordinary peripheral sensitivity. Marc Bernardi, 2000

Despite the fact that sharks aren exactly circling the East Tucson home of Mary Peachin or frequenting her neighborhood, they are never far from her thoughts. As she herself circled around a platter of quesadillas during lunch at El Charro Cafe, she explained that her fascination with sharks began at least three decades ago and came about because of boredom.

While vacationing during the 1970s with her husband, David, in San Carlos, Mexico, the Tucson native became restless after spending several hours of lounging on the beach. "I borrowed a mask, snorkel and fins and spent what was left of my trip under water," she said with a laugh. The following Christmas, her husband gave her dive gear and threw in some scuba lessons. The vacations that followed were usually ones planned around underwater activities.

She would make about 100 dives before finally seeing her first shark. "One afternoon while exploring a reef in the Caribbean, a shark gracefully glided past me," she recalled. "I can still remember the adrenaline pumping through my body and how my heart was in my throat."

Her first feelings of fear were quickly replaced by curiosity. As she watched the beautiful creature swim away, she realized her life would never quite be the same.

"Searching for sharks and photographing them became extremely important to me but my underwater activities were a secret I didn share with my children because I didn want them to worry about me," she said. The secret life of Mary Peachin became not so secret when she was outed by a San Diego newspaper.

"A sports reporter for the Union-Tribune wrote a feature about scuba divers who pursued blue sharks and in it he mentioned my encounters, describing me as a smiley-faced grandmother with silvery hair from Tucson. Friends began calling to ask me if I was that woman and I knew that my cover had been blown," she said. Her outing made it necessary to come clean with her son and daughter. She was pleased that like her husband, they, too, were supportive and proud of her.

Although she continues to observe and photograph sharks in dives throughout the world, she uses common sense and does not make the mistake of trying to approach them as pets.

"One of the basic rules while diving near sharks is to make certain that you always have a full view of the shark and that he sees you," she said. "If the shark can determine that you aren a fish or sea lion, it will look elsewhere for its next meal."

Despite the fact that there are nearly 350 species of sharks, at least 80 percent are endangered. Over-fishing, the use of deadly nets and poaching have all decimated the shark population. Peachin explains that this assault on sharks is a worldwide crisis that could ultimately trigger an environmental imbalance, a situation that would have dire long-range consequences. She suggests that one way to stabilize the shark population is to avoid all products made from them and to work with organizations and groups that are working to protect them.

Her concern about the future of sharks was one of the main reasons why she agreed to write "The Complete Idiots Guide to Sharks." Published this month, the book is a fascinating read that helps separate the myths from the reality. It distinguishes the various types of sharks, examines their lifecycles and explains why they are such an important part of our world.

Peachin debunks much of the folklore associated with sharks. For example, of the 350 species of sharks, only about 11 types have ever been known to attack humans. Sharks do not eat continuously nor are they scavengers. They are not fast swimmers, they can see in the dark, and their behavior is fairly predictable.

"The Complete Idiots Guide to Sharks" tells you everything youve ever wanted to know about these magnificent creatures including their anatomy, their sexual habits, their historic significance, and their need for protection from human beings. The book also features dozens of illustrations, many in full-color, including at least five that were taken by the author with her underwater camera.

One afternoon, a shark ventured too far into her personal space and she used that same camera to smack him on the snout. After being hit, the rather startled shark lost interest and swam away.

Peachin believes that a better understanding and appreciation of sharks may help save them from extinction. Her new book will certainly be beneficial in that effort.

"I hope that people who read my book will see sharks as I see them - beautiful, elegant, sleek, streamlined creatures," she said and added that if we take the time to learn about them, well do more to protect them worldwide.

DID YOU KNOW ...

• Sharks eat only about 2 percent of their body weight each day - a bit less than humans eat.
• The great white shark has 3,000 teeth.
• Female sharks have two uteruses.
• You can calculate the age of a shark by counting the growth rings of its vertebrae or spine, much like counting the rings of a tree.
• Sharks are the oldest existing species with immune systems.
• 100 million sharks are harvested each year.
• The earliest evidence of sharks comes from fossilized spines, teeth and scales that appeared about 430 million years ago in the Silurian Period, also known as the Age of Fishes.
• The skin on the back of the whale shark is the thickest and toughest of any species in the world.
• Most sharks swim and feed alone.

IF YOU GO
Mary Peachin will be signing copies of "The Complete Idiots Guide to Sharks" at both Barnes and Noble Booksellers locations in Tucson.

• Sunday at 2 p.m. - Barnes & Noble Booksellers, 5130 E. Broadway
• Monday at 7 p.m. - Barnes & Noble Booksellers, 7325 N. La Cholla Blvd.

Tucson Citizen by Larry Cox

Shes Hooked on Adventure

She is, by her own admission, an adrenaline junkie. "I don know where it comes from," says Mary Peachin. "My parents were afraid to walk across the street. But Ive flown my own plane, gone sky diving and bungee jumping."

These days, the lady gets her kicks by swimming with sharks - reef, hammerhead, blue, you name it. It took a hundred dives before she spied her first shark. "It was in the Caribbean, a reef shark, sleek and graceful, about 5 feet long." Apprehensive up until then, Peachin was instantly hooked - so hooked that shes since sought out the seas most-feared creature from the Philippines to the Galapagos Islands.

Shes even written a just-out book on the subject, "The Complete Idiots Guide to Sharks," which shell be signing Sunday and Monday. Still, shes the first to admit that shes no expert on the subject. "I only know about my own experiences," says Peachin, who relied on five shark experts, plus a collaborator who did all the research for the book. The result is both personal and academic. (Don miss the well-researched chapter on shark sex.)

It all began in the late 1970s, when Peachin - a native Tucsonan whose family once owned the old Levys department store - went snorkeling in San Carlos, Mexico. Not long after, her husband, David, presented her with dive gear and scuba lessons. Seven hundred dives later, shes still using the same mask and fins -and still pursuing adventure.

"I chased the whale shark for 23 years," says Peachin, who finally caught up with the creature three years ago off the Galapagos. "The current was so strong that the dive master said we could be swept out to sea. We were hanging on for dear life. The barnacles were ripping our fingers. It was thrilling."

Yes, indeedy. So was the encounter with that saltwater crocodile off the Solomon Islands, that close call with hundreds of sea snakes near the Philippines, and that jellyfish bite in Micronesia. "Ive been bitten dozens of times, but this time I got a bad reaction," says Peachin, who saw half of her body swell up. Shes also had to bop a few sharks on the nose while cage-diving. "Nobody said I wasn scared. Thats when you get the adrenaline rush." Still, she remains wary. "If an aggressive shark is following me, I will start heading up. If it ascends with me, I get out of the water."

Though her two children are also certified divers, most of the time Peachin goes it alone, averaging two to three dive trips a year. "Most of the divers Im with are the age of my children," says Peachin, 61.

In the early 90s, she started selling her stories to a number of publications. "I call it adventure travel," she says. She also maintains a Web site at www.peachin.com. As for the book, "I have this agent in New York who had some of my shark-diving articles. He heard that the Idiots series wanted a book on sharks. I think it may have germinated after all that shark-attack media in the summer of 2001."

She will be signing her book, which goes for $18.95, from 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday at Barnes & Noble Booksellers, 5130 E. Broadway. A second signing is 7-9 p.m. Monday at the Foothills Mall Barnes & Noble, 7325 N. La Cholla Blvd.

Two weeks later, shell be off on another diving trip, this time chasing humpback whales - and another hit of adrenaline.

Bonnie Henry
Arizona Daily Star, March 5, 2003

March 6, 2003

Complete Idiots Guide to Sharks book reviews

Southern Arizona Author

The Complete Idiots Guide to Sharks by Mary L. Peachin (Alpha, $18.95). Peachin is a born-and-bred desert resident, so readers can be even more impressed to learn that she has become an enthusiastic scuba diver who loves to swim with sharks. Peachins research into the history, biology, culture and folklore of sharks is thorough. Just don expect a recipe for shark fin soup. Arizona Daily Star, J.C. Martin Sunday March 2, 2003

Speaking of Sharks

Don let the unfortunate title fool you, but The Complete Idiots Guide to Sharks is an intelligent volume, chock full of good science about how sharks hunt and feed, their life cycle and behavior. Undercurrent subscriber Mary Peachin has traveled the world diving with sharks, and has put it all together in this interesting, well written book -- how makos switch from being cold to warm blooded in a flash, the truth about shark immune systems, tagging and tracking, overfishing, all in all a great book for any diver. 334 pages, $13.27. Undercurrent Online January, 2003

Tucson Lifestyle Magazine by Wendy Sweet- July 2004

A Tucson Superwoman
From all outward appearances, silver-haired Mary Peachin fits her role as a businesswoman, community leader and volunteer fundraiser. But lurking beneath this executive exterior lies the heart and soul of an adventurer.

This mother of two adult children regularly dives with sharks. She also has bungee jumped off a tower in Australia, piloted small planes and sky dived. “I admit I am a bit of an adrenaline junkie,” says Mary. “I also have almost an insatiable curiosity about people. That’s partially what motivates my travel and determines my destinations.”

Mary is an adventure travel writer/photographer who also publishes an adventure newsletter on the Internet. “Peachin Adventure (peachin.com) has thousands of readers every day,” she proudly notes. “I publish the newsletter every month (except for bi-monthly issues in November/December and July/August), and each one features a different sport and destination.” In addition to including her own commentary, Mary also publishes articles by “other top-notch writers doing adventures I don’t have on my radar screen right now.” She first started the newsletter about eight years ago. “I was one of those pioneers on the Internet,” she says.

Although athletic as a child, Mary’s adventurous spirit didn’t really blossom until after she married her husband David 38 years ago. “He bought me a bicycle, and I rode across the state of Arizona a couple of times. Then we went to San Carlos, Mexico. Rather than sit on the beach, I went snorkeling, and didn’t get out of the water for two days! David bought me scuba gear, I started diving in 1978 and the rest is history,” she says.

Mary encountered her first shark in the early 1980s. “This was back when only a few people were doing research with sharks, and before people were regularly diving with them,” she remembers. She admits it can be scary to see a shark up close and personal. “That’s when the adrenaline kicks in. I get such a rush. Sharks are sleek and beautiful, but I respect them totally,” Mary says. “Two things I crave are diving and tarpon fishing. I can only go so long and I have to go diving. There is nothing more serene, quiet and beautiful.”

The intrepid adventurer, who has more than 700 dives under her belt, searches the Internet for trips and almost exclusively takes “live-aboard” dive trips. On these trips, you actually stay on the dive boat and “can dive all day and night.” Dive boats are not like cruise ships (there might be a dozen divers on board); “they are geared toward the hard core who wants to dive all day and not have to worry about hauling gear back and forth from a hotel,” explains Mary. These dive boats have come a long way since she first started taking the trips.

“‘Live-aboards’ used to be roach infested with almost inedible food,” she recalls. She generally travels alone on diving trips, while her husband David often travels with her on bicycle trips. Mary hooked her entire family on fly fishing, and they now get together for an annual fly fishing outing (daughter Suzie is a teacher in Portland, Oregon, and son Jeffrey is a CPA in San Francisco).

Despite the fact that her adventures take her all over the world, “I haven’t had to take that much time away from my family,” she says. “The kids are gone, and my husband is a workaholic CPA. I do most of my adventures during tax season to preserve my marriage,” she jokes. She does admit that all this travel results in her being “in a state of chronic jet lag. There have been times I’ve literally woken up in the middle of the night and not known where I was.”

Her adventures also have resulted in some close encounters with death. “My closest call came while tarpon fishing in Costa Rica,” Mary relates. “A wave hit our small panga boat and killed the engine. Waves kept coming in and swamped us in shark-infested waters. I was up to my neck in water holding on to the side of the boat, thinking, ‘eventually I’m going to have to let go and swim.’” Fortunately, two nearby fishermen saw what was going on and rescued both Mary and her guide. She also has experienced three emergency landings while piloting a small plane. “The worst time was when I was flying to Yuma and lost all electrical power,” she recalls. “I also had two scared passengers.” A tense 45 minutes later, she made a safe landing.

Mary bungee-jumped “because I got tired of people asking me if I had done it,” she says. “It was my biggest rush, but it was scary,” she admits. She went sky diving on her 50th birthday. “I didn’t really like the sky diving,” she says. “I didn’t have goggles on, so I couldn’t get the view I wanted, and the g-force I experienced when the chute opened came as a surprise.”

Two of Mary’s most memorable underwater experiences involve a humpback whale and a whale shark. “I was diving in the Turks and Caicos when a fellow diver tapped me and said there was something big behind us. It was a humpback whale. The whale stopped, went up to the surface and came back down, stopping just a few feet from us. We swam over within just a few inches of him, and then he swam off without a ripple. I wanted that same exciting experience with a whale shark. However, I chased the whale shark for at least 20 years all over the world before I finally saw one.” She has now seen two while diving, but both times were in “horrible diving conditions.” During one sighting in the Galapagos Islands, “the current was so strong that divers’ equipment was blowing off. It was a thrill to see the whale shark, but because I couldn’t let go of the barnacle-encrusted rock I was holding onto for dear life, I couldn’t photograph the shark or get closer.”

Mary writes about her travel adventures for numerous publications — including Sport Fishing magazine, Chicago Tribune, and the Dallas Morning News. She also has written a book about sharks: The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Sharks, published in 2003. With the help of five experts, three editors and a collaborator, Mary wrote the book in just three months. Several of her shark photographs also are featured in the book. She seldom travels to the same place twice, the exception being British Columbia. “That is the only place I’ve returned to time and again. Vancouver (in B.C.) is my favorite city.” In fact, she and David now have a condo in Vancouver in addition to their home in Tucson.

The Peachin homes are filled with artifacts Mary has collected during her world travels. The collection is “cultural, ethnic and maybe a bit morbid,” she observes. It includes such diverse items as a Greek orthodox icon. But probably the most unusual treasure is a skull rack (although it has a coconut rather than a skull on it!). Of her collection Mary says, “it doesn’t matter to me what it is, as long as it isn’t new and wasn’t made for tourist consumption.” The walls in Mary’s office hold her numerous awards – including a national award from United Way, presented by Gerald Ford at the Kennedy Center in 1987. She also has received the Tucson's Woman of the Year Award (1981), and the U of A Alumni Association’s Distinguished Citizen Award (1992).

A native Tucsonan, Mary’s parents owned Levy’s department store. “I started working for my dad (Leon Levy) as a stock girl when I was about 13 or 14,” she remembers. She received a B.A. at Tulane and her M.P.A. at The University of Arizona. Over the years she has pursued a variety of careers. “I’ve been an adoption caseworker, aviation consultant, and I owned an art and framing business for 15 years.” But, she confesses, “I’ve never been so busy or had so much fun as right now.”

This winter, Mary went scuba diving in the Dutch Antilles (Saba, Statia, St. Kitts), Thailand, and Mona Island off Puerto Rico, and she traveled to Portland and Vancouver. Her 2004 plans include a trip to the Bahamas, as well as, “grizzly bear viewing in British Columbia. I also want to do more salmon fishing and go fly fishing for trout in B.C.” A bicycle trip in Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick is also is being planned. “I may not look it, but I am a gym rat. I work out every day,” she says. “If for some reason I don’t get my work out, I feel I’ve been deprived. I try to focus on staying fit.

Ten years from now, I hope I can be doing the same things. Upon returning from some trips, I’ve been known to mutter, ‘Phew, I’ve defied death once again.’”

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