Diver Down

The problem with sharks is that when they hit you, they might not mean it, but you're dead anyway.

A 66-year-old triathlete was swimming off Southern California yesterday morning when he got hit. He suffered a bite on his leg with a radius of 22-inches. He later died.

A 22-inch radius? That's a big shark. The fact that the animal didn't pull the man under and finish him off is a sign that the animal isn't a man-eater yet. No doubt, like most shark attacks, the animal bit him in a taste test. Neoprene, Coppertone, human hair and sweat, strange texture. Yuck.

Not that it matters much to us. A taste test from an eager shark with a 22-inch bite is almost always going to be fatal.

So now the beaches are closed and the people are scared, and everyone can run out and rent Jaws for one more go-round.

People love sharks as much as they fear them. When I lived in Santa Monica, they were just releasing the Jaws DVD. Brilliant marketers that they were, the production house plastered Jaws posters all over Venice Beach, and wrapped some of the posters around the beach's trash cans. The public flipped and the signs were removed a couple of days later, but the point was made: Jaws scared people out of the water, and the mystique of that movie remains to this day.

Ragged Tooth
I've dived with ragged tooth sharks and reef sharks, both times on purpose. I can't say I was afraid of them once in the water, but I did respect them (in the boat, I'm afraid; in the water, I'm not. I don't know why). During the ragged tooth (raggy) dive, I got within five feet of several large sharks. Our guide told us that as long as the pectoral fins stayed horizontal, the shark was cool. If the shark's fins started to point downward, that was the time to worry, because the shark was getting upset. Most shark attacks during a shark dive occur because a human being loses their head, and the shark responds by getting aggressive.

On this particular raggy dive in South Africa, I saw one guy panic. We were at 60 feet, and a current was taking him straight into a raggy's snout. The man pinwheeled his arms (never effective, and a sign of panic), but he kept drifting and drifting towards the shark. The shark jerked its head away and went around him, cool as a cucumber, and I thought it was funny. I literally laughed into my regulator.

After the raggy dive, we were in boat and laughing and talking. One guy brought out a tooth the size of a small tea cup and showed it to us. The guide said it was a Great White's tooth, and that people found them down there all the time.

I put two and two together, and a shudder went right up my spine. If people were finding porker teeth "all the time" down there, then that meant Great Whites were coming by all the time, too. Meaning that while I'd been hanging on a line at 15 feet during my decompression stop, I was just so much bait on the end of a hook.

But that's Great Whites for you. The movie star of sharks, one of the last true monsters left on Earth. Though I'd just been within a few feet of a dozen fierce-looking raggies, it was the mere thought of a Great White that made my spit disappear.

I hope they don't hold the Southern California attack against the shark too much. I am not an animal rights lover in the true sense, but I figure this shark deserves a pass. In a few days he'll find other waters to hunt in, and the beaches should be fine.

The funny thing about the poor guy's shark story is that it makes me want to go diving as soon as possible.