CUTE??? I’m balancing on a 2 inch thick inflatable rubber Stand-up Paddleboard, and a SHARK just swam under me. That is NOT cute! (ok, it was a little bit cute because it was only about 2 feet long, but still…SHARK!)
I chuckled nervously, not wanting to seem like a scaredy cat in front of my neighbor and new friend, who clearly didn’t think that paddling above a shark was anything other than a fun morning out. Fortunately, we were at the end of our outing, and were heading back to shore!
I never realized I could paddle that quickly!
As soon as I got home, I turned on the computer and typed into Google…
“Sharks in Tampa Bay.”
One of the things I have learned through decades of Dancing in the Discomfort Zone is that a lot of fear and discomfort comes from unknowns. Often we can eliminate unknowns by asking questions or doing research.
The article I found gave me some fun facts about my new home.
- There are about a dozen species of sharks that live in and around Tampa Bay. (Hmmm….that seems like a lot!)
- Tampa Bay is known as one of the most shark-dense areas IN THE WORLD. (I started an e-mail to my old landlord to see if my place in Michigan was still available….at least there the lakes are commonly referred to as “unsalted and shark free!”)
- Shark attacks are very very rare. (Ok, I’m feeling a little better.)
- Sharks kill about ONE person per year in the entire United States. (oh, that’s not many considering how many people swim and boat and paddle in all the sharky waters in the US.)
- COWS kill about TWENTY people per year in the United States… (Cows??)
- You’re more likely to die by COW than by Shark. (How do you die by cow?? A topic for another e-mail!)
Before the research, I was ready to sell my paddleboard and move inland. I saw Jaws, and I was TERRIFIED by the Jaws ride at Universal Studios when I was 4 years old. I still remember it to this day. Hollywood has done a fabulous job of making sharks really really scary.
They also ruined clowns for a lot of people (see also Coulrophobia ) and let’s be real…they’re not nearly as menacing as sharks and cows! (except John Wayne Gacy who turned out to be pretty scary…but I digress!)
Now that I know how rare shark attacks are, and that most sharks are not aggressive at all, I actually look forward to seeing them.
I even saw another little bonnethead shark the other morning, and I actually squealed,
“He’s SO CUTE!”
