Yesterday I had a deposition in Ft. Lauderdale, it took all morning, but I decided to go to the beach in the afternoon instead of return to my office. I brought by bathing suit and changed in the car. When I got down by the water there was a crowd of people pointing into the water and screaming... Shark, Shark... and demanding people get out of the water.
A woman screamed and yanked her child out of the water while yelling at her husband, "see I told you it was not safe to let her swim here."
I looked up to see a famular sight from that beach, a pod of four Manatee swiming about 10 yards off the shore. They were beautiful and the two adults were huge, much bigger than all but the largest of great white's. Admittedly they were hard to see when they were underwater, but they swam way too slow to be sharks, and when they came up for a breath, you could clearly see they were not sharks.
I casually told the most vocal of the wacko's yelling shark that they were Manatee, and I quietly informed the mother who was screaming at her husband that they were harmless, that Ive been swiming with them before.
I went into the water to get a better look, and the wacko returned to screaming Shark, Shark and this time demanding that I get out of the water. I swam out toward the manatee who got spooked and moved down the beach, I watched as this sceen played out over and over again as they made their way down the shore.
Why are people so scared? Why do they instill that fear into their kids? Why do they get so upset when they meet someone who does not share their fear? Once they properly told me they thought it was a shark... why insist I get out of the water?
Even if it were a shark, the damm thing would have left me alone.
My father taught me from a young age not to be afraid of the ocean. I was afraid of sharks and so once when we were snorkling, he found one, a Nurse Shark about 6 feel long, sleeping under a ledge. The water was about 15 feet deep, he told me to watch from the surface and he dove down and yanked its tail. The shark shot out of there so fast your head would spin. THat taught me that conventional wisdom about things we fear is generally WRONG, and I have always carried that with me.
Please people, learn that lesson and more importantly TEACH IT TO YOUR CHILDREN.
A woman screamed and yanked her child out of the water while yelling at her husband, "see I told you it was not safe to let her swim here."
I looked up to see a famular sight from that beach, a pod of four Manatee swiming about 10 yards off the shore. They were beautiful and the two adults were huge, much bigger than all but the largest of great white's. Admittedly they were hard to see when they were underwater, but they swam way too slow to be sharks, and when they came up for a breath, you could clearly see they were not sharks.
I casually told the most vocal of the wacko's yelling shark that they were Manatee, and I quietly informed the mother who was screaming at her husband that they were harmless, that Ive been swiming with them before.
I went into the water to get a better look, and the wacko returned to screaming Shark, Shark and this time demanding that I get out of the water. I swam out toward the manatee who got spooked and moved down the beach, I watched as this sceen played out over and over again as they made their way down the shore.
Why are people so scared? Why do they instill that fear into their kids? Why do they get so upset when they meet someone who does not share their fear? Once they properly told me they thought it was a shark... why insist I get out of the water?
Even if it were a shark, the damm thing would have left me alone.
My father taught me from a young age not to be afraid of the ocean. I was afraid of sharks and so once when we were snorkling, he found one, a Nurse Shark about 6 feel long, sleeping under a ledge. The water was about 15 feet deep, he told me to watch from the surface and he dove down and yanked its tail. The shark shot out of there so fast your head would spin. THat taught me that conventional wisdom about things we fear is generally WRONG, and I have always carried that with me.
Please people, learn that lesson and more importantly TEACH IT TO YOUR CHILDREN.
