Surfing With Sharks
New Smyrna Beach, Florida.
Look it up. More shark attacks,
bites, encounters than anywhere on
the whole planet. More than Australia,
New Zealand, California, Africa, South America – any of the usual suspects
associated with this kind of fun and adventure.
We rarely hear about it.
Most of the shark movies and documentaries and other commercially
generated thrill products, seem to
originate in locals where they producers can stuff in more incidental, or
co-incidental adventure. Like storms, or shark swarms, feeding frenzies and … maybe,
mating. Also, these movie guys prefer
places where the geographical names
are more exotic, catchy, recognizable, exciting sounding. New Smyrna
Beach – sounds like some 1950’s retirement
village. (Well, doesn’t it? New
Smyrna Beach! Sounds like a
sneeze. “New smyRNA BEACH!” “Bless you.”
“Thank you.”)
You’ve got “Surfers’ Paradise” and Perth in Australia, Second Beach, Port St. Johns,
South Africa, Makena Beach, Maui (Hawaii), Boa
Viagem, Pernambuco, Brazil – among others.
In the top ten, all of them.
Who’s gonna bother trying to get people to pay attention to Shark
Attacks in New Smyrna Beach
. Admittedly in NSB all of the attacks
have been just mostly nibbles by bull sharks (which tend to be not very
big – oh, about four to six feet is all.
Right… Just four to six feet of pissed-off ending in a mouthful of razor sharp teeth!)
No fatalities (dead people) recorded from the NSB
attacks. Although if somebody swam way
out and got completely eaten – every scrap – how would anybody else know?
So I go down to NSB, where one of my sons
lives. He surfs. Loves to surf and has surfed in Costa Rica,
Puerto Rico, off Manhattan Island (in the winter!) and, yes, he surfs on
New Smyrna Beach nearly every day. He
gives me grief (just a little grief, not much, but a little) about riding a
motorcycle. Says it’s really
dangerous. His job involves treating
patients in an Emergency Room and has worked on some extremely gnarly
motorcycle accident victims.
And then he goes out and surfs on the sharkiest
beach in the world!
I said, “So what about all the sharks?”
“You have a one in 1.1 million chance of being
attacked by a shark. And, a one in 6,700
chance of being in a car accident.” He answers.
Hmm… He would know stuff like
that. He’s a lot smarter than me.
“So have you seen any sharks, when you’re out there
surfing?”
“I’ve seen a few.
The thing you have to know is that they are everywhere in the water
around here. You might not see them, but
they are there. You just can’t think
about it too much.” My son observes.
Not really a very comforting statement. To an old man. Who is a tad overweight and has a bad back,
but loves to swim in the salt-water surf.
Still I do ride a motorcycle – on route 64 in Virginia – which is like
Russian roulette with cars and trucks.
My NSB son buys a very good quality body-board for
me. A surf body-board is where you don’t
stand up on it, but where you are horizontal on the water with about half of
the board in front of you and the other half under your stomach. It’s very popular, especially with people who
have really crappy knees … like me. (I
used to have good knees – three score and ten years ago.)
I’m attaching a video of my body-board efforts with
this blog, so you can see what it’s like.
Still … when I trod down to the beach with my spiffy
new board, for the first time, I’m thinking, “Sharks, sharks, sharks.” New Smyrna Beach; shark attack central of the
planet! My first few times beating my
way out through the incoming waves, it’s all I can think about, “Please, no
sharks! Please no sharks!”
Because I have never done this surfing thing before, I wind up getting tossed around a lot. Getting my face mashed into the sand on the
bottom. Gallons of water forced down my
throat. The guy who sold us my
body-board was a surfing instructor and he gave me some good tips on how to get
started with the board. How to hold it
and just where to try and catch the waves for the first few times.
“Sharks, sharks – please no sharks!” My mind is so
focused on that, I can’t catch a wave right to save my ass. I’m really just getting thoroughly beat up by
the waves.
Exhausted, out of breath, I stagger out of the surf
and flop on the beach. My stomach is
sloshing around like a jelly fish, I’m so full of salt water.
While I’m getting my breath back and belching salty belches,
I think, “Fuck it! Fuck the sharks!
Daniel says they are out there everywhere. Fuck ‘em!
I’m a motorcycle rider. I’ve
crashed five times and have the scars to prove it. I am
gonna surf!”
So I go back out. I
seem to see dark shapes moving around in the water everywhere. “This is stupid.” I think. “Every one of those dark shapes can’t be a
shark.” It’s like when I’m on the bike
and I know there are a lot of distracted car and truck drivers – talking on
cell phones, just not paying attention.
I know they’re not trying to
kill me on my bike. I just have to pay
attention to them. Do what I can to
avoid their stupidity and lack of focus.
I think about being an airplane passenger, and I have flown
in some real raggedy crop duster airplanes.
When your number is up, it’s up.
You let some small detail get past you when you’re on a motorcycle, you
could crash. The airplane you’re in
could stall out or even simply blow up.
If a shark decides you look tasty, well – you might get tasted.
I’m now old. I can’t die young. That’s one comforting thought. I
can’t die young! I have already out
lived the odds. I have done a lot of really stupid things where I
could have punched my ticket, but I’m still here. I decide to just “not think about the
sharks.”
At that point, when I get back out in the surf, I start
actually catching some waves. First few
times I don’t ride them very far, but I do get a nice ride, a small thrill of
all that water pushing me forward at speed.
After a bit my rides get longer and longer. I still get churned around a lot. I still screw up a few of my attempts and get
more water forced down my throat. But the
fun index goes up and the fear index goes down.
So much of being really
alive, is not living in fear. It’s not always easy to get to that place.
Sometimes you really have to mentally and emotionally, and even
intellectually, work hard at it, but when you do get there, it is so worth
it.
******
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Dale Clarence Peterson © 2014
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