Shark Attack, Baby!

 “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear…and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.” – H.P. Lovecraft

Our yearly summer vacation was nearly at hand.  A full week of surf, sun, and sand at Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.  It’s an event that our family looks forward to every year.  An opportunity for long, lazy days on the beach and quiet evenings filled with fun and local food over the Fourth of July week.  No worries of work, school, or schedules.  Previous trips have resulted in tropical storms and a magnificently brutal sunburn that wreaked havoc on said relaxation plans.  Not this year though.  This year will just be a complete application of decompression and stress reduction.  I earned it.

In addition to that stress relief, it was also the time for me to ditch my pallid vampire complexion and actually fit in with my family.  They may spend all summer perfecting their Caribbean-like features at the neighborhood pool, but my office’s fluorescent lighting doesn’t do much to help transform my pasty-white Nosferatu features into that healthy golden glow of summer skin. 

Unfortunately though, I would not be the only Great White hitting the Carolina beaches that week.  Just prior to our departure, several of those same Carolina beaches decided to reinvent themselves into a leading national news headline…eight separate times.  Really, the timing was impeccable and more than a little unnerving.

Multiple shark attacks were reported in the general vicinity of where we were going to vacation.  Not just shark attacks, but horrific shark attacks.  Sharks in knee deep water taking limbs, chunks, and everyone’s complacent sanity with them.  You usually hear of one, maybe two, over the course of a summer.  But eight in two weeks?  Something was off-kilter.  That natural balance within the confines of Davey Jones’ locker had tragically gone askew.  Mama Nature was clearly incensed by something and was now raining down fear, terror, and Sharknados on our vacation plans.

“There’s no such thing as a ‘shark attack’.  We live on the land.  Sharks live in the water.  You get caught down there, you trespassing.  That’s they living room.  You know what a real shark attack is?  If you somewhere you supposed to be and a shark shows up.  Say you in the crib taking a shower and feel a tap on your shoulder.  ‘What up, playa?  It’s shark attack, baby’.” – Comedian Ian Edwards

As always, my own fears and paranoia wrestled control and took charge of all of my faculties from there.  All of those Jaws nightmares from my childhood that I had neatly tucked away in the dark recesses of my dented melon had now suddenly swam back to the surface.  How could I protect my children from something that I can’t even see or even know that’s there?  Always the obvious epitome of rational thought and level-headedness, I declared that our children would not go swimming when we got there.  There would be no swimming, no boogie boards, no inflatables, no nothing.  “I hope you enjoy a full week of sand castles, kids!”  I mean seriously, who doesn’t like eight hours of paddleball and being buried in the sand every day?

Children always find ways of pushing those limits though.  Over time, and with little reluctance, they eventually made it to the water.  First, up to their shins…then to their waists.  Eventually, they found themselves up to their mid-torsos busily, and thoughtlessly, enjoying the waves.

As for myself, I found myself on high alert standing knee deep in the surf like David Hasselhoff’s stoic Mitch Buchannon.  Stone-faced and undeterred by mere petty tourist distractions.  There was no time for relaxation and stress reduction on this vacation.  I had to monitor the shark’s living room for impending danger.  When they were in the water, I was in the water busily scanning the ocean for fins and fast-moving dark shapes.  I scrutinized all playful shouts and screams and checked all tides and sandbar depths.  And yes, I probably even fought some bad side-stories of beach crime as well.  Make no mistake about it…I was doing The Baywatch.

The local television stations only made it harder for me to shake off my inner Hasselhoff in the evenings.  It just so happened to be Shark Week on the Animal Planet network and the local news was busy feverishly covering and re-covering every attack in painstaking detail.  You couldn’t get away from it.  No matter where you were or what channel you were on, someone was getting chased or bitten by a shark. 

Finally though, I reached that crescendo of paranoia.  One evening, the local news reported that Portuguese man o’ war were now washing up on the beaches of North Carolina and that some irresponsible alligator was spotted cruising the ocean waves just north of our location.  Mannies, gators, and bull sharks?  Oh my!  The three horsemen of the vacation apocalypse!  May as well change my name to “Pharaoh” before they sprinkle a few more biblical plagues on me for the remainder of the week.  I’m sure someone could muster a couple hundred-thousand locusts up on short notice.

“Well, if we're looking for a shark, we're not gonna find him on the land.” – Hooper (Jaws)

As the week progressed, however, and without any more “shark-maims-tourist” episodes in the area, I found myself starting to relax.  Although I was still full-time Hasselhoffing it as a daily routine on the beach, and although it may have been tough to see on my anxiety-chiseled face, I had actually started enjoying myself a little bit. 

That was until the boy decided that he wanted to try parasailing.  Nothing says relaxation quite like signing a Release of Liability waiver on behalf of my adolescent son, cruising high above the shark’s living room a mile out from shore, and then airmailing ourselves to the vicious predators below like cheap Chinese take-out.  Egg drop soup, order up!

From the air though, we saw nothing but jellyfish. No mannies, no gators, no lurking dorsal fins, and no locusts.  Nothing but fair winds and following seas…albeit from 200 feet in the air and attached to a speeding boat by nothing other than a single strand of rope.  By all accounts from the local news reports though, parasailing appeared to be the safest thing we did that week.  Like I said, relaxation and stress reduction.

Eventually, the week came to end and it was time to head back to the real-life trepidations of work, new school year preparations, and jam-packed schedules.  Thankfully, there were no shark sightings and we were returning with all of our digits and appendages intact.  Even the quintessential Mitch Buchannon would sign off on that one as a successful Baywatch episode.  Even better, I may even eventually have the feeling in my neck tendons return at some point over time.

Plans are already in the works for another Myrtle Beach vacation at those same Carolina beaches next year.  Preparations have already begun to ensure that complete application of decompression and stress reduction.