Sharks

There has been a lot of interest in sharks the last couple of weeks at least partially due to the Discovery Channel running something they call Shark Week. They’ve done a pretty good job so far in balancing there selections between red neck "Kill em All." and politically correct "The Shark is our Friend." The truth of the matter is that sharks are neither monsters nor angels, they are pretty much truly amoral beings. They don’t come on shore looking for humans to eat but if you go out and play in their world and dress up like a sandwich they’re pretty accommodating about adding you to the menu. Sharks do tend to eat mammals they find in the water (Seals, Dolphins etc.) but they don’t seem to have any malicious intent, just a desire for dinner. I suspect they would rather have a nice tuna than a leg of man, but man is easier to catch and he is after all trespassing, isn’t he?

I bring all this up partially because I used to spend a lot of time in the ocean. The South China Sea to be more precise. I had a job that had me working two days on and two days off and on the two days off if I didn’t get out of town my old boss would put me to work like I was his personal servant. It was the military, they can get away with that. Anyway, this took place in Subic Bay in the Philippines and in the mouth of Subic Bay (the body of water, not the town) there was an island called Grande Island that was used as a recreational area by sailors and marines at the base. There really wasn’t much to do there except swim, snorkel or dive unless of course you wanted to sit around all day drinking beer. I loved the first three choices and couldn’t afford the fourth so I spent a lot of time in the water with a snorkel in my mouth. At first I just looked at the wonder of the clear blue water and all the sea-life, but that got a bit boring so I tried other activities to spice up the day. First I got a spear gun and started to harvest langastino (warm water lobsters) which I could trade to the restaurant on base for meals. Worked out pretty well. Sometimes I would take them three langastino and get back one of them with all the trimmings for dinner. This got a bit less appealing and more like work when the chef started demanding more and more langastino for less and less payback. So I stopped bringing him any and started boiling them on the beach for myself and my friends. Much more satisfying.

I suppose I should get to the point about sharks here sometime. In all the time I spent in the water off Grande Island, I only remember a few times that I did-not see a shark or two. Most of the time they were little ones, I actually speared and ate one about 18" long once but most of the time they were way to big for me to contemplate messing with. You just don’t offer to sword-fight Zorro, especially when you are on Zorro’s home turf. The closest I came to getting injured by a shark was when I brushed against a six footer (I think it was a Mako as it was pretty thin) and got the equivalent of rug burns from it’s rough hide. I think it wanted the octopus I had just speared and I would have given it to the shark had I been able to get my spear out of it. About that time I ran out of air as I was free diving and I had to surface to breath. When I went back down the octopus had extracted it’s self from my spear and gone on its way and the shark was nowhere to be found. Just as well. I must admit that this all took place a few years before the movie Jaws came out or I might not have has such a cavalier attitude about the sleek gray fishes.

So, when you see all the stuff about "Devil Fish" in the movies remember, if they were truly devils, they would be sneaking around your back yard eating your puppy.

Uncle Dave