Fish Story

With all the alligator stories going around, I thought I’d tell you mine.

Well, maybe later…although I do have a good one, it can wait.

Instead, I’ll tell you about a big fish.

Have you ever really been scared?

When I was living on the Atlantic coast in North Florida, I had a two-man Air Force survival raft. One day when the surf was up, a friend and I decided to paddle out past the breakers and ride the 10-foot swells. We were in the bottom of a swell about 500 yards off shore, paddling and splashing around like children, when a shark surfaced in the top of the swell ABOVE us. I could see it’s eye, it’s teeth, and it was longer than the raft. I could have touched it with the oar. The shark circled 270 degrees around the raft, and then submerged. We thought, “Damn – it’s going to ram us”. Needless to say, we stopped paddling and sat up on the sides of the raft, and waited. When you’re sitting on the edge, it’s hard to maintain stability. I don’t know whether or not I should have been, but I was actually scared at that moment. I really was FUCKING scared. It was a big-ass shark.

Aside from being burned alive, I think being ripped apart and eaten by a fucking shark would be some Bad Bad Juju.

We decided, rather than draw attention to us by paddling and making a bunch of noise, we’d just drift into shore. Problem was, we were in a sideways current that was taking us toward a jetty where the waves were breaking on the rocks. We thought that would probably kill us, and it damn near did, but it was better than being eaten.

Seems funny now…and I have the scars to prove it.

It was a long wait.