Ocean of Fear

My first encounter with sharks happened early. I watched the movie Jaws for the first time when I was about ten years old. I remember how I felt the first time I watched Quint's telling of the sinking of the USS Indianapolis. I watched in horror and absolute fascination, just imagining what it must have been like for the men in the sea surrounded by sharks in the dark.

After the movie, I asked my dad more about the sinking and if he knew details about the men's survival. For years the stories he told me would stay with me. I started checking out books about shark attacks from the public library. The more pictures, the better. I wanted to hear survival tales, details about swimmers deflecting the deadly grasp of a shark by beating in the soft tissues of their eyes. I would tell the other kids at school these details, offering up pictures of surfers laying in shreds on the operation table. I was soon asked not to bring in these books to school.

For years I've had shark dreams. Whenever I'm stressed out or going through a rough period of time, night after night I dream I'm in the water with sharks. Either I'm treading water as sharks are coming at me from all sides, or I'm in a small boat with sharks bumping the bottom. Sometimes there are tsunamis approaching from the horizon and I'm standing in a beach house watching it come towards me, filled with sharks. Sometimes the sharks aren't coming for me, but instead they're coming for someone else that I care about and I'm standing on the beach watching it happen.

As fascinated as I am with this species and as ready as I am to hear more tales of the open ocean, I find that I don't go in the water past my torso. I just can't. Around that depth, I find that you can't see the bottom and that's enough for me. I'm happy on the beach, I'm happy in a boat, but I won't be caught (DEAD) in deep water. Though I don't agree with shark dives for environmental reasons, I find people who want to take part in this legally insane. Even scuba diving around coral reefs....hello, did you not see Open Water? The boat will leave you and you will be eaten by sharks.

Perhaps I need to deal my delicious fear of these creatures by facing them. Maybe then my dreams will stop and I can go on dreaming about normal things, like sex and ham sandwiches and flying. But until we leave sharks alone and understand that the ocean is their home and we are trespassing, you will find me happily sitting on the beach reading about them.