More About Gulf Vacations

(How to not get caught feeding the sharks…)

Finally we’re getting some accurate first hand details about Saturday’s shark attack near my old stomping ground on the Florida panhandle

It looks to me like the teenaged girl was just damn unlucky. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time and the more complete news stories confirm what I said yesterday—that she probably came to the attention of a big bull shark.

“Surfer Tim Dicus, 54, said he heard a scream and saw Venable swimming for shore as fast as she could. Jamie was face down in a bloody circle of water, and the flesh had been torn on one leg from her hip to her knee.

Dicus swam out to help the teen.

"He was very aggressive," "I've been here a long time and I've never seen a shark get that aggressive."

Dicus pulled Daigle on to his surf board while the shark continued its attack, Local 6 News reported.

"I got her on to the board and he continued to attack from the outer bar to the beach," Dicus
said”

Although his comments are well intended, I disagree with surfer dude Dicus. The behavior he describes as being exhibited by the suspect shark is actually very typical of documented shark behavior.

Sharks aren’t stupid. They generally won’t take on something bigger than they are unless it is already dead or dying. They prefer scavenging wounded or dead fish rather than killing healthy live prey like that consumed by Dolphins, Barracudas, and the other larger game fish species.

The problem here is that the legs of little 90 pound girls thrashing around on floats and “boogie boards” looks to sharks exactly like a couple of three foot long fish floundering around in the surf.

Unless they are VERY hungry, Sharks also won’t take on something their own size or slightly smaller if the prey reacts aggressively. As a Scuba diver I’ve been instructed to leave sharks alone and enjoy watching them, but to face them down and even punch them in the nose or eyes if they happen to get too friendly. Harassing a shark by grabbing it by the tail or fins is definitely a good way to get bitten, although I’m not suggesting that the two girls were harassing this big fella'.

When a shark comes in to investigate potential prey, it will initially give it a bump or possibly a nibble. If the prey reacts aggressively the shark will probably move on to something less troubling to deal with. The bad news is that once a shark comes in and actually takes a bite, if they like the taste, they will then circle around and come back in to take another bite. They will also wait and watch nearby for things to settle down and then come in and eat at their leisure (once the prey is dead.)

Sharks rarely swallow their prey whole. The shark’s mouth and teeth is designed as a tearing machine. They bite down on their prey and shake their head from side to side—actually “sawing” their way through flesh and bone. Believe me, a four or five foot long shark can break human bones very easily.

Remember the young semi-professional female surfer that had her arm bitten off by a shark in Hawaii a couple of years ago? She was lucky to survive with a shark taking her whole arm in that manner. The little girl injured this past Saturday was said to have had a chunk of flesh torn off of her thigh. She probably bled to death out of the big femoral artery located in that part of her leg—a tourniquet and a great deal of luck were her only chance of survival.

I saw a videotape while visiting Walkers Cay Bahamas a few years ago that showed a scuba diver performing a “shark feeding” exercise by hand. Feeding sharks by hand, just like feeding gators and bears, is a VERY bad idea. Even though the diver was wearing a protective “chain-mail” sleeve, one of the eager sharks swam up, grabbed her forearm rather than the fish she was holding, and with two or three shakes of its head and body the video showed the bone in her upper arm snap like a toothpick. The diver got to keep her arm, but she had to endure the recovery from a COMPOUND FRACTURE—all caused by an itty bitty 4 foot reef shark.

Finally, I have a recommendation for swimmers visiting the Gulf coast of Florida:

Confine your swimming to the areas inside the second sandbar unless you are an experienced surfer or snorkel/scuba diver or otherwise really know what the heck you are doing.

Will you do this for ME, Please?

I promise that you’ll still have a good time, you’ll be a hell of a lot safer for a number of reasons besides sharks, and I won’t have to spend two weeks watching FOX News’ Greta Van Susteren roll her eyes back in her head and twist her crooked mouth telling me about your demise.

Here is the deal on the topography of the beaches down there in Panama City and Destin. You should be able to tell from my discussion that I am an EXPERT on this area of Florida.

First, understand that there are multiple rows of sandbars running parallel to the beach, and the water is relatively shallow for a good distance offshore. You sometimes have to go out 20 miles to fish in 100 feet of water. The Gulf of Mexico in this area also has a very low tide fluctuation, usually only about 1-1/2 or 2 feet from high to low. This allows very well defined sandbars to build up and they are a unique feature that sometimes draws swimmers too far offshore with a false sense of security.

Depending on the tide conditions and the recent weather actions on the water, the first sandbar can be anywhere from twenty feet to twenty yards offshore. You can wade out into water somewhere between knee deep and waist deep, then if you keep walking or swimming out you can be standing in shin deep water on the sandbar. It’s fun and usually safe for the younger kids and adult swimmers of all capabilities, as long as the surf is not too rough. This sandbar is what causes the waves to break on shore. Fun, fun, fun.

After you get to the first sandbar, if you keep moving offshore you’ll pass through another section of water from armpit deep to slightly over your head in depth, at which time you’ll encounter another sandbar which is usually about twenty to fifty yards beyond the first one. Many times you can comfortably stand on this sandbar. Sometimes it’s only waist deep, and for this reason it is attractive for kids and weaker swimmers. Usually even this location is safe, again as long as the surf conditions will permit.

Unless you are an expert surfer or wearing a mask and swim fins, this is as far as you should venture off shore.

There are usually at least four noticeable rows of sandbars that extend several hundred yards offshore into water depths between fifteen and thirty feet deep, but these bars are useless to swimmers without a snorkel or scuba tanks. This area of the gulf is routinely inhabited by the exact same marine inhabitants that you can find three miles offshore—I know, because I’ve probably spent a hundred hours of my life out there in years past.

It's a neat area to visit because that is where the good shells and sanddollars are located, and the friendly creatures inhabiting these deeper areas will generally ignore you...but,

as we all were again reminded this past weekend, their sharp teeth are quite capable of taking a chunk out of you that you will probably need while driving home from your vacation, and they could care less how unhappy your mother, husband, father, wife, or kids feel about you not making it back home alive as a result of their having a little snack.