Shark Whisperer

I still haven't written my Christmas post, but it will have to wait... This story is just way too good to delay!!

Monday was Heroes Day, a national holiday in Cayman. While deciding how to best celebrate Heroes Day, I asked myself: "What would Caymans' heroes do?" Hit the beach and drink beer, of course! About 2 hours into our heroic celebration at the beach, Barry stared quizzically into the water and asked, "What's that in the water? It looks pretty big..." When we turned to look in the same direction, we saw a flock of tourists gathering along the shore. They, too, saw the 4 foot long dark shadow moving in the water. A man snorkeling close by identified the shadow as a nurse shark. Shark?? Shark??!! The shark disappeared as quickly as it came. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Stuart, one of my new roommates (he's neither a serial killer nor tap dancer-see comments), wandered back from the bar just after the shark sighting. Extremely disappointed that he missed it, he asked in which direction it left. Seems he wanted to go catch the shark. "Ha ha ha - yeah, too bad you weren't here to catch it!" we joked. And then we resumed drinking.

After about an hour or so, in need of cooling off, we all went for a swim. The flock of tourists came running down to the edge of the water again. The shark had returned. My defensive tactic was to stand completely still... I'm sure that's how Chief Brody defeated Jaws... Or was that Jurassic Park? Oh crap... Next thing I knew, Stuart was swimming over to the shark. He wasn't kidding when he talked about catching it. In a matter of minutes, Stuart had it by the tail & lifted it part way out of the water! It was an amazing sight. The shark settled into the sand in the very shallow water and allowed us to pet it! It was about 4 feet long and a really beautiful brown colour. It seemed to be enjoying all of the attention. I was surprised by how rough its skin was - it felt like sandpaper. Clearly it hadn't been moisturizing... After about 5 minutes, Stuart guided the shark away from the shore and our new little buddy swam away. I now know a shark whisperer!

While working at WF, I had many nightmares about swimming with sharks (don't need Freud to interpret those). Although this one was much smaller than the ones in my dreams, I had an opportunity to face a fear and survived to tell the tale.

p.s.
Yes, that's me with a Corona in my hand... Miles away from ordinary? Absolutely!