What is paradise? Is
it a real place, or is it an ever-evolving idea of an unobtainable
perfection?
To be straight, it's
where I live; at least that's what the seasonal yahoo's keep sayin.
For me, it's always been home. Some might ask, “Does living in
paradise therefore make it not paradise?” I would answer, for me,
no; this is most definitely still paradise. It’s always sunny and
nice, except when it’s stormy or raining. It's got white sandy
beaches and clear blue ocean as far as the eyes can reach. What's not
great about that? For me though, it's the ocean, not so much the
land. The ocean and I have been tight since the day my little baby
foot first stepped in. Once I was big enough to board, the land
couldn't keep me long enough to dry off. Surfin is the one thing that
makes sense to me, you know? Learning to feel, smell, taste, and hear
her to the point you can tell from standing out on your door step
whether she was puttin out or layin chill. When you’re on your
board rollin barrel and it's so sunny that you can see the sky
through the barrel turning everything blue, on that day you'll never
give her up. But even in paradise there are demons, and twelve years
ago today, I met a few.
It wasn't a perfect
day to board, but she was puttin out and I was ready to get in her.
It was 80 degrees and about 50 percent sunny, 50 percent cloudy.
You’re probably sayin “what the hell, that's a nice day.”
That's not nice, but it ain’t bad either. So I called a few spares,
and next thing I knew Tino, Checkers, and yours truly where surfin
some choice double-over-headers at the off season beach. You see,
where I'm from there are two seasons: tourist season and off season.
During tourist season, the locals go to the quieter and less crowded
off season beach, which is not as well maintained but still choice,
like a diamond in the sand. I think that's how it goes? During off
season, we migrate back to the now nearly vacant tourist beach, which
is nicer. It was off season when it happened, and we like to make the
off season beach our own spot in off season because no one other than
the occasional secret make-out session is ever there. Any way, we had
been out for a few hours, just shredding waves, when they started to
settle and we were left bobbin 600 or so meters from shore, and
that's when things got nutty.
“Totally weak!”
Checkers screamed out as he threw his hands up, flailing and kicking
his legs.
Then he leaned back
very calm-like and said, “Well I got some wicked bud in my pack
bro's, you wanna partake?”
We quickly checked
the beach for the red and blue, or any folks in general, but mostly
the fuzz, and to our delight there was nobody.
“Man, I love the
off season,” Tino yelled out, right before we started to paddle in.
The water was blue
and pretty clear, but we had been having storms all week and that
shakes up the sands making the water cloudy, so I couldn't see the
bottom. The sun had just broken past a 45 minute cloud that had
lingered over head, so we stopped for a second and soaked up a few
rays. I was lying with my back on my board, with my hands and legs in
the water, livin the high life when Tino yelled out the “S” bomb.
“SHAAARK!”
We quickly got all
our limbs out of the water and looked where his finger was pointing
as a huge dark shadow, just low enough to not make out what it was,
swam slowly towards us. Sharks are just part of the game when you
surf, so you put it out of your head and enjoy the water, but just
mention of the word can get your heart racing when your 600 meters
out.
“That's too big
to be a shark you dweeb, it's gotta be 30 feet at least. It's
probably a whale or a school of fish,” I hollered back at Tino.
“Great whites get
that big don't they? Let’s just get the hell outta the mix,” Tino
replied, as we watched it turn and swim back out to deeper water.
“No, they don't
get that big. They are like 20 feet long max, and that thing was
massive,” I pointed back in the direction it had swam.
“No worries you
two poindexters, ‘cus now that bud is sounding even nicer,”
Checkers said as he took off to shore, and Tino followed right
behind.
I sat back enjoying
the sun for just a second longer than I should have as something very
big with lots of teeth grabbed my right leg. It felt like a million
knives had been stuck in my leg from shank to foot. It yanked me off
my board with no effort as I was pulled in the mix. It let go as soon
as I was under water. When I opened my eyes, I could see the most
massive, great white swimming away from me. A kind of terror like you
can never know, until you are in the water with the world’s biggest
great white who's just tried to eat your leg, froze me in place. I
couldn’t even kick my big toe I was so scared.
The shark swam
around me, circling and diving under me, then coming back at me only
to cut away from me when he was within a few feet. He was just sizing
up his meal, I thought. Then he turned back at me and slowed to a
near stop just a few feet from me and turned broad side. The shark
looked cold and calculated as it watched me with its jet black,
jewel-like eye. I looked deep in to that gigantic, never ending black
eye, and that was the wakeup call that snapped my legs and arms into
motion. It was completely silent, other than my heartbeat, until I
broke the surface and heard the frantic yelling of Tino and Checkers.
“SHAAARK!!!” I
yelled with all my power.
They started
without thought to swim back out to me, but as I climbed on my board,
I waved for them to get to shore. They didn't listen. Instead, they
stopped and waited for me to catch up as I left a trail of blood
washing off the back of my board. They could see the water changing
color behind me and yelled for me to hurry. I was scared out of my
mind, and it must have been the adrenaline, because everything was
very clear and I didn't feel much pain, other than the sting of
saltwater. I watched as this beastly monster swam under me the entire
way, like a cat that keeps letting a mouse get away, just to catch it
again. I am not a big guy, only 5'11 and 155lbs, 158 when my hair is
wet, and this thing made me feel insignificant and completely
helpless to its will. Whenever it came too close for comfort, we
pulled our arms and legs tight to the board as if it would help.
While we waited for it to dive back down, I reached back through my
shredded shorts to feel the wound and my middle finger slipped inside
my leg to the second knuckle with ease, causing a very serious pain
to jolt my entire body. After it disappeared, we paddled even harder
to shore, and seconds later the leviathan hit the back of my board
just inches from my feet. I looked back expecting to see my life in
fast forward, but all I saw was a big gray fin dipping back under the
water.
“Stop toying with
me you muther F*cker!” I yelled as Tino and Checkers picked their
own four letter words to scream.
We were about
halfway home when three more dark figures appeared in front of us,
less than half the size of the great white demon that stalked me, but
it’s really not the big sharks you have to worry about most the
time, it's the medium ones that cause the most hell.
Tino started to cry
as the ten foot shadows turned and came right at us. We all stopped
paddling and pulled our limbs in as tightly as we could.
“Maybe it's
dolphins Tino, they chase sharks off right?” Checkers tried to cool
down Tino's freak out, but as the shadows got near us they went right
under us and the worst case scenario happened. My bleeding leg
brought three nice sized tiger sharks in to feed, and they are
particularly nasty bastards. Nature’s garbage disposals, my Nanna
use to call ‘em. I have seen more than one fishermen cut open a
tiger shark thinking he got a man eater and found empty boots, pop
cans, plastic food containers, or any other thing you would find on a
beach, boat, or in a house. They eat it all!
The tiger sharks
immediately started to hit our surfboards with their bodies and
tails. When that proved fruitless, one of them took it up a notch. I
watched as the shark swam out and turned back at me picking up speed.
At the last second, as I watched its coal black eyes roll back and
its chainsaw jaws open, I leaned to the left of my board and gave it
a mouth full of fiberglass, but now I was back in the water. By the
time I got my bearings, the tiger shark was making his second
approach. The tiger shark was really picking up speed, and as the sun
was slowly passing from behind the clouds giving me a clear look at
my doom, I watched as he opened that toothy trap. Seconds before the
shark got me, the gigantic great white returned with fury, snatching
the tiger shark up in it jaws, and burst out of the water into the
air thrashing what looked like a toy shark in its grasp, to death.
Blood sprayed into the air as the tiger shark was nearly ripped in
two.
I climbed back to
my smashed up surfboard and balanced as best I could, but I could not
believe what I had seen… It was like the great white used me for
bait to attract the other sharks so he could eat them; but, he didn't
eat it. He was just pissed the other sharks attacked his prey before
he could finish it. I wasn't gonna give any of them that chance, so I
paddled as hard as I could. Then, something hit the back of my board
again. The great white was pushing my board with its nose so hard it
brought the tip of my board up off the water and sent me shooting at
the shore even faster, and as I passed Tino and Checkers, it dove
back down into the depths.
I looked over my
shoulder at Tino and Checkers who were shoulder to shoulder haulin’
ass behind me with their jaws gaping. Off their right side, a striped
fin came out of the water 20 feet from them and was picking up speed.
I had to keep looking ahead to watch for rocks so I quickly checked
back and forth, and each time I looked back the fin was a little
closer, until I looked back and seen the great white grab the tiger
shark by its face, like a truck hitting a little kid. The hit was so
close to Tino and Checkers, and so fierce, that it nearly knocked
them off their boards. They struggled to stay afloat and paddled even
harder than they knew they could. After seeing that, they had not
problem catching up to me, and the rest of the way to shore there was
no sign of the third tiger shark, or any fish, just the massive great
white below us until it was too shallow to follow.
As soon as it was
shallow enough to walk safely, I abandoned my broken ass board and
started to hobble and fall my way to shore. Tino and Checkers got on
each side of me and helped me along while carrying their boards. The
pain got worse the farther from the ocean I got, and really sucked as
I laid on the sand looking at the countless puncture marks in my
right leg. The wounds were not torn or threshed open, but very clean.
Checkers got his phone out of his back pack and called emergency,
then came and sat down next to Tino and me. Screaming out in pain, I
tied my white t-shirt as high up my thigh as I could to help stop the
bleeding.
“You guys still
want to partake? The way I see it, they will have to use the old two
track trail because the main road is out, so we got about 10
minutes.” Checkers held out the dooby and chuckled.
“After that shit!
Why not?” I said as he lit it up.
We passed that
joint around till it was roached, and watched the great white as it
paced up and down the beach. As the ambulance sirens entered within
earshot, the monstrous great white stopped for a second in front of
me like it could see me on the beach where I was sitting, thrashed
its tail, and swam off.
That day, the
biggest great white shark ever seen on the shores of our little
island taught me a lesson that I hold dear to this day, and will for
every day to come.
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