Thinking too much about wildlife

As my Catalina swim approaches, I find myself getting more, not less, anxious about the wildlife issue - I had hoped that the opposite would be true and that I would start focusing on the swimming, rather than what might be swimming with me / near me. Of course, this is mostly about sharks, which I tell myself are technically present, but actually hanging out elsewhere. But then I read this on the Facebook page of the La Jolla Cove Swim Club (San Diego):

"Beautiful flat water this morning. Comfy temperature of about 62. Lots of bat rays swimming out past 1/2 mile buoy. Large schools of barracuda fish. 9 foot + 7-gill shark at 1/4 mile buoy."

Now .... that, to me, is a lot of wildlife for one swim. I'm sure it's absolutely amazing to see, but I'm really not sure how I would react. And let's be honest, if you don't know your sharks, one dorsal fin looks pretty much like another, and I'm certainly not going to be waiting around counting gills (this is one of the many harmless varieties that hang out in those waters, apparently). So, I just don't know. I'm hoping that once I'm in the water, I'll just slip into happy swimming mode. And hopefully, once the swim is over and I'm into the research phase of my trip, some of the locals will take me out to some of these amazing swim spots and help me learn how to be in the water alongside these beautiful creatures that I've never really even seen before, never mind been up close to.