Shark Life: True Stories About Sharks & the Sea Read online

  I began to swim in the ocean at the age of five. I went with an uncle who had been disqualified from serving in the armed forces during World War II because of a bad back. Swimming in the sea was his passion and his therapy. Because there were no lifeguards on most of the beaches on Nantucket, he wanted me to know how to take care of myself.

  He taught me how to study the water before I went in and how to enter the water without getting bashed by a wave. He taught me how to select a good wave to ride, how to ride it, and how to recover from the mistakes I was bound to make. He taught me that swimming in the ocean meant working with the ocean, never against it.

  My uncle's first lesson was: Never fight the ocean. Go with it and it will work with you. Let it take you where it will, and it will let you go.

  It's the most important single thing to know about ocean swimming. If everyone who swam in the ocean obeyed it, the number of drownings would shrink dramatically.

  People who get into trouble in the ocean tend to panic. Somewhere between twenty and forty people a day will drown during the summer in the United States. Most of them will be within fifteen feet of safety, but they will drown because they panic.

  If you are a young, healthy person, there is no reason for you to drown while swimming in the ocean. But before you enter the water, you need to learn the basic facts about the environment into which you're about to go. Some people believe that they can outmuscle the ocean. No one can. And yet there are some who will die trying.

  Here are some basic lessons I've learned and some simple precautions that will help keep you from getting into trouble while swimming off a beach. You just need to learn a little about how oceans work, have the patience to study the water you're about to enter, and use your common sense.

  NEVER SWIM ALONE

  Never, never, never, under any circumstances. There are too many things that can go wrong—from getting cramps to choking on salt water to being stung by jellyfish or microscopic organisms—for anyone to risk swimming without assistance nearby. Lifeguards aren't enough; they can take too long to reach you, especially if you're choking or gagging.

  OCEAN WATER IS ALWAYS MOVING

  This is a fact you must take on faith. No matter how calm the surface may appear, the water beneath is never still. It is moving in three directions: back and forth along the shore, in and out from the beach, and up and down along the slope of the shelf of the beach.

  Water is driven constantly by wind, tides, and currents, and by local factors like channels, jetties, and points of land. The presence (or absence) of reefs, shoals, and sandbars will change water's motion. Prevailing winds will drive surf onto certain beaches and leave others to be lapped by little but the tides.

  If you intend to swim in the ocean, it makes sense to stand for a moment and study what the water is doing that day. The wind will be pushing waves onto the beach. Since winds rarely blow directly at a beach, the waves will strike the shore at an angle. This causes a current called a set or a drift that moves the water in a particular direction.

  Look at swimmers already in the water or at pieces of wood or seaweed floating on the surface. Note which way they're moving and how fast. That will tell you how strong the drift is and how quickly you'll be carried away from the point where you enter the water. The stronger the drift, the closer you should stay to shore. If the drift is strong, carefully plan where you want to exit the water, because here is another fact of ocean swimming: You Cannot Swim Against a Strong Current. If you try, you will exhaust yourself. You could start a chain of events that may lead to disaster: fatigue, gasping, breathing water, choking, panic, struggling for air, waving or calling for help, sinking, and, finally, drowning.

  If you want to come out of the water near your blanket, your soda, and your can of Pringles, walk up the beach in the opposite direction of the drift. Enter the water, and let yourself float down the beach until you reach your exit point. Then swim gently across the drift toward shore. Otherwise, be prepared to float away from your home base and walk back when you're finished swimming. Under no circumstances should you try to swim against the current.

  There are a few naturally occurring phenomena that can sometimes (but not always) be seen from the shore. They can be deadly but don't have to be. You can anticipate them just by being aware of them, whether or not you see them coming.

  UNDERTOW

  This is a term that is universally known and widely misunderstood. Many people use undertow to mean any action of waves, currents, or tides that can be dangerous. In fact, undertow occurs mostly on narrow beaches with steep drop-offs. It is, simply, the action of water thrown ashore by a wave returning to the sea.

  After a wave breaks, gravity will carry the water back to sea. If the drop-off into the sea is steep, the water will fall sharply, carrying you with it. If you don't struggle or resist, the undertow will carry you for a few feet (perhaps more, but not much more) and will then fade away. Buoyed by the air in your lungs, you will rise to the surface, and you can swim back to shore. You may find yourself in water over your head. But if you're not comfortable being in water deeper than you are tall, you should probably not be swimming in the ocean in the first place.

  RUNOUT OR SEA PUSS

  A common cause of problems is known both as a runout and a sea puss. Somewhere offshore from a fairly straight beach there may be an invisible sandbar or shoal that has built up over a long period. Millions of tons of water will flow over the bar toward shore. At last, the level of the water inside the bar will be greater than the water level outside the bar. Then the water must begin to flow back seaward.

  If there is a weak spot in the sandbar, it may collapse and create a funnel-like path through the bar. The enormous volume of water will rush toward the funnel with unimaginable power and irresistible force.

  Runouts happen frequently, and they can be seen from the beach. People watching one have described the scene as like seeing the entire ocean running down a drain. A strip of water leading out to sea, perhaps ten yards wide, perhaps fifty, will look different from the rest of the ocean. It will definitely have its own motion. It may contain short, choppy, foamy waves. The water will look murky and sandy from turbulence. All kinds of flotsam—pieces of wood, seaweed, trash—will be speeding seaward in the strip. If there is wave action over the sandbar, the runout will look like a gap in the surf, for this is where the bar has collapsed. Once beyond the sandbar, the strip will vanish as the water disperses and the runout has … well … run out.

  For veteran surfers, runouts are a blessing. They provide effortless transport over the bar and beyond the waves. Surfers know that if they change their minds, they can return to calm water simply by paddling across the runout until they're out of it.

  Swimmers caught in runouts have that option, too. But most either don't know it or, in shock and surprise, forget it. They panic and try to resist the force of the runout. Instead, they should surrender to it and, when they're ready, swim across and out of it.

  Swimmers caught in a runout have another option, too, but it takes a cool head and a practiced eye to choose it. If you can see the sandbar offshore (or the waves breaking on it) and can tell that it isn't too far to swim safely back from, you can—no kidding—relax and enjoy the ride. The runout will carry you past the bar. A little farther out it will fade away. Then you can return to shore—maybe even pleasantly, by riding one or more of the waves that break over the bar.

  That second option may be a bit of a challenge for the average swimmer. But once more, if you're not fit enough to swim, kick, float, or dog-paddle for a couple of hundred yards in the ocean, don't go in.

  Undertows and runouts affect only swimmers. They occur in the water or, in the case of runouts, offshore. You can't be caught in one if you don't go swimming. But there is one ocean menace that can reach up onto the beach and grab you and drag you into deep water. Its common name is a rip.

  RIP

  The reason a rip is so dangerous is that it actually forms on
the beach. If you are wading in the wave wash where a rip begins—like the four kids in Queens mentioned earlier— you can be knocked off your feet and sucked out to sea in a matter of seconds.

  Beaches are by nature unstable. The mixture of sand, pebbles, rocks, shells, vegetation, and water that makes up a beach is soft. Its shape changes with every wave that passes through and over it. All day long erosion creates small depressions up and down the beach. Water from returning waves will flow toward the depressions, scouring them deeper and wider and creating, very quickly, a strong seaward pull—a rip.

  If you are standing at the edge of such a depression, the ground will suddenly disappear and you will be sucked away from shore. If the natural slope of the beach is long, gentle, and shallow, you may be able to struggle out of the rip, sideways, into calm water. But if the slope is short and steep, you will be in deep water before you can catch a breath.

  Rips look like runouts, and you can get out of them safely in the same ways. Like a runout, a rip is a strip of rough, murky, foamy water moving directly away from the beach. A rip begins right at the beach, however, and it tends to be narrower than a runout, anywhere from a few feet to a few yards wide. It doesn't travel as far—usually it fades away just beyond the breakers. It can end as suddenly and unpredictably as it began, while other ones may be forming at other spots along the same beach.

  A swimmer caught in a rip has the same options as a swimmer caught in a runout. You can swim across the rip until you're out of it, or let it carry you out until its force diminishes. Whatever you do, don't fight it. Don't try to swim straight back to the beach. That way lie exhaustion, panic, and, perhaps, drowning.

  To me, one of the saddest things about drowning is that it is so often so easy to prevent.

  Years ago, I wrote a piece for the New York Times Magazine on how to swim safely in the ocean. In it I quoted veteran Red Cross safety expert Mike Howes, who described for me the typical drowning victim:

  “He [the victim] decides he's in trouble, so to attract attention he waves his arms over his head, which puts a lot of meat out of water—where it's heavier—and makes him sink. He struggles up again, gasps for breath, then waves his arms again and sinks again. If he left his arms in the water and waved them slowly up and down, he'd stay on the surface. But he doesn't, so he gets water in his mouth; his epiglottis slams shut, and he panics. He coughs, sinks, coughs underwater, gasps, and—well, that's it.”

  What most swimmers don't know is that if they are un-injured and even a little competent, they can save themselves. In all but the roughest and coldest seas, they can stay afloat indefinitely. They can also, without great effort, move toward shore. They may end up several miles from where they entered the water, but they'll be alive to gripe about the walk home.

  One day in my late teens I was swimming with a friend off the south shore of Nantucket when we found ourselves trapped beyond the breaking point of endless, tremendous waves. There were no surfboards, body boards, or Boogie boards back then—at least not on Nantucket. All we had for flotation and transportation were our own air-filled lungs and our own strong arms and legs. We had been riding the waves happily for an hour or so and had paid no attention to where we were in relation to the shore. We weren't aware that we had been swept away from the long, sloping beach where the waves broke in regular rhythms and carried us all the way in to knee-deep water. Now, we were surprised to find, we were far offshore from a steep, relatively short beach. That beach combined with a hidden sandbar to produce row after row of tall, rough waves that crested high and broke almost straight downward.

  We tried to ride waves. But instead of being carried gently ashore, we were slammed violently onto the hard-sand bottom, “boiled” mercilessly in the sandy foam, and then pushed upward to more or less the same place where we had begun. All this just in time to duck under another monster wave, and another. After making almost no progress for ten or fifteen minutes, we were both exhausted. We knew that our only hope lay farther offshore, in the calm water beyond the waves.

  Turning seaward, we swam under breaking wave after breaking wave. Finally, we reached open water where ocean swells had not yet become waves.

  We were, we guessed, between a quarter and half a mile offshore. Though we couldn't see the waves actually breaking onshore, we could see their massive shoulders gather and hunch before they disappeared. They were instantly followed by the next rank of waves and the next.

  We knew very well that there was no way we were going to make it to shore in these conditions. We also knew, though, that we really had nothing to worry about. Nantucket is only fourteen miles long. We had entered the water at about the midpoint of the island, and we were heading westward. There, at the end of the island, shallow shoals extended far offshore.

  We were cold, yes, because the water temperature was only in the upper seventies. But if we stayed active, we could keep from freezing for many hours. We might run into a serious stroke of bad luck—getting eaten by something, say, or getting run down by a nuclear submarine. But the odds against either of those things happening were astronomical. We knew we could float safely until we reached a time of slack tide or a point at which we could walk ashore.

  We'd be inconvenienced, surely, and grumpy and tired and cold. We'd be forced to catch a ride, soaking wet and sandy, back to our car. But we would be alive.

  It took four hours, but that's what happened. Along the way, we passed several populated beaches. The people were so far away that they looked like the tiny computer-generated passengers in the movie Titanic. We even passed a beach with a lifeguard, but we raised no alarm. We didn't want to put anyone's life in jeopardy by asking them to rescue us. Besides, we were fine; we didn't need rescue.

  Sometime in the afternoon, we came to a part of the island where the shoals extended so far out to sea that wave action stopped. There was no steep beach for the waves to break on. We were in a stretch of choppy sea that we could, at first, swim through and then, at last, wade through.

  We were as grumpy and tired and cold as I had predicted—and we were grateful. I said a silent thankyou to my uncle.

  DROWNPROOFING: A SURVIVAL TECHNIQUE

  Everyone who wants to swim in the sea should learn an excellent survival technique called drownproofing. It was invented in the 1940s by a swimming coach named Fred Lanoue. Endorsed by the U.S. Public Health Service and taught at many schools, it's easy to learn and, as much as anything can be, idiotproof. (It is not, however, panicproof. Nothing is.)

  The two ideas behind drownproofing are: (1) most people will float if their lungs are filled with air; and (2) it's much easier and less tiring to float vertically than horizontally. Most people's bodies want to float vertically, buoyed by the two big air sacs (the lungs) that stay near the surface, and with the heavy (bony and muscular) hips and legs dangling beneath.

  Here's how to drownproof yourself with an adult's supervision:

  Floating vertically, with your hands limp at your sides, take a deep breath. Hold it, and let yourself hang there, with your face in the water and your eyes closed.

  As soon as you feel that you'd like to take a breath—long before that awful feeling when you know you must—exhale slowly through your nose. Raise your arms, and cross them in front of your face. Spread them as if you were parting curtains. When your arms are extended, push your palms down toward your sides and tilt your head back. Your mouth will come out of the water. Take a breath, lower your head and arms, and let yourself bob in the water.

  Every movement should be easy, deliberate, unhurried. You're not trying to go anywhere. There's no rush and no worry. When you hear your pulse—and you will, for the rhythms of your body become the focus of your mind—it should sound normal, not rapid. Fear and excitement waste energy and oxygen.

  I can hear you muttering, “Easy for you to say.” But that's why you're practicing, so that if the time comes for you to save yourself, you'll be ready.

  It won't take you long to feel at ease
with the technique of drownproofing. When you do, lift your head out of the water and flutter-kick gently until your body is horizontal. Then—on your back, with your hands paddling easily at your sides—kick as often as is comfortable in the general direction of the shore.

  If you tire, stop kicking. Let your legs hang down again, and resume the drownproofing breathing until you feel you're ready to carry on. Remind yourself that you're not trying to “beat” the sea, nor is it trying to beat you.

  We humans sometimes tend to assign human characteristics not only to animals but to the sea itself. We use words like treacherous, savage, and killer to describe natural phenomena like waves, currents, and storms. We refuse to accept that we must coexist with nature, not compete with it or attempt to dominate it.

  We are nature, and nature is us. We are of the sea and from the sea. If we choose to go into the sea, we must respect and appreciate it. It is an environment that is different but not hostile to the educated and prepared, and fatal mostly to the foolhardy.

  9

  How to Avoid a Shark Attack

  Remember: the chances of your being killed by a shark are so tiny, they're not worth worrying about.

  The odds against being attacked by a shark are nearly as long. Very, very few encounters between swimmers or snorkelers and sharks result in what could be considered an actual attack.

  I think of an attack as what a grizzly bear does when she's protecting her cubs, or what wolves, bears, and even rats do when they're cornered or threatened. In general, sharks do not attack people. The exceptions happen mostly to scuba divers who cross an invisible line into an area that a shark considers its territory. Then the divers don't see, don't understand, or choose to ignore the obvious warnings issued by the shark.

  When a shark feels threatened or crowded, its posture changes. Its back hunches; its pectoral fins drop; sometimes it shakes its head back and forth; always it looks and acts agitated. It is saying— shouting—“Get out of here! This is my turf.” Fish get the message; they scatter and disappear into the reef. People sometimes don't. Then the shark attacks: it rushes in, bites, and, usually, retreats to wait and see if the intruder leaves.