07.26.01

Here are a few things that I have learned from the book Shark Attacks: Their Causes & Avoidance, by Thomas B. Allen, which, despite the title is actually really interesting. There are a lot of really gory and vivid descriptions of actual shark attacks. Sadly, there are no pictures of the wounds*.

• If you are foolish enough to be swimming in open water, like an ocean, sea, lake connected to an ocean somehow, river, estuary, delta or pretty much anywhere a shark might be, which is pretty much everywhere except for the average swimming pool, unless it belongs to someone nefarious and dastardly, like Dr. No, and would probably not be considered average in the first place, avoid a shark if it is doing this:

  

  Apparently, when it goes all woogy like that, it's primed to attack, feeling threatened or hungry, or any of the myriad shark emotions that no one really understands but generally don't want to elicit.

  see also: you're fucked.

• If the shark is doing the following, you are probably okay, but are still stupid for being in shark-infested waters:

  Personally, I don't really care about the shark's posture. I'm more concerned about the shark itself. If I were to hypothetically be swimming with a shark, and it was alive, I would be very very terrified. Possibly to the point of heart attack. However, I would make special effort to neither pee my pants nor foul myself the other way, because according to the book, that kind of thing is likely to pique the shark's curiosity.

  Incidentally, curious sharks tend to "mouth" things that interest them, to assess them for fat content and relative tastiness. While they don't necessarily intend to irreparably damage said things, their gazillions of pointy teeth generally do anyway.

  Tempting, but no thanks.

• Information probably left out of the brochures for the Five Sullivan Brothers Convention Center in Waterloo, Iowa:

  "After the torpedoed cruiser Juneau sunk of Guadalcanal on November 13, 1942, a shocked nation learned that the death included five brothers. The five Sullivans, united in heroic death, became a symbol of patriotish at war bond rallies. But what happened to the Juneau's men was not fully disclosed. Four of the Sullivans did go down with their ship, along with about 600 of the 700 men aboard. The eldest brother, George, was one of about 100 men who went over the side and awaited rescue. But, like the men of the Indianapolis, the Juneau survivors faced a long ordeal. For eight days, sharks picked off man after man. No one knows who died of what, but George Sullivan almost certain was taken, dead or alive, by a shark. When rescue ships arrived eight days after the sinking, they found ten survivors. The sharks were still there."

• And here is my nomination for Yuckiest Recounted Event from a Shark Attack by a Survivor:

  "He got me by my right arm. When he got me that time, he rolled over and was thrashing. We went down to the bottom and that's how my knees got skinned up. He dragged me across the bottom. I assume we were in about eight feet of water.

  "We came up out of the water and when we came up were were in waist-deep water. Evidently, he was working in toward the beach with me. I was fighting, trying to survive. The next thing I knew, and I don't know how we got there, we ended up on a sandbar that was about shin-deep. It was probably about fifteen yards off the beach.

  "He was swinging his head back and forth, and I was swinging at him, trying to get my arm out. I realized he couldn't come any farther toward me, but I couldn't get away from him. I just started working my arm up and down and finally it just broke off. That's probably the eeriest, worst sound I've heard in my life, my arm breaking off."

  That's right, kiddies, he snapped his wounded arm off at the injury site to escape the attacking shark.

  Blech.

Yesterday & Tomorrow.

*Hey, I'm a little morbid. Sue me.

P.S. Coincidentally, these people are really fucking dumb: http://cbc.ca/cgi-bin/templates/view.cgi?/news/2001/07/24/oz_whalewatching010724