I have been scared of sharks my whole life.

Some of that is geography. I grew up in Colorado. Landlocked. The ocean was something that happened to other people, on vacation, in movies. Sharks were a thing you saw on TV, and they were terrifying on TV.

Some of it is my mom. She once had a dream that I got eaten by a shark. Thanks, Mom. That one stuck.

So when we were staying at Santa Rosa Beach, I was not that guy swimming way out past everybody. But I was finally starting to get comfortable in the water.

The afternoon

One day, around three or four in the afternoon, I decided to go for a swim by myself. There were people around, but nobody close to me.

I went out farther than I ever had. About a football field out. On my own. Not the smartest move, probably, but everybody does it.

And it was beautiful. Clear water, clear sky, just me treading water and looking around, feeling pretty good about how far I had come.

Then I saw a shadow coming my way.

Out there that is usually nothing. A lot of the time it’s a school of fish moving through. So at first I wasn’t worried.

But it kept coming. And the closer it got, the more wrong it looked. A school of fish spreads out. This didn’t. It was too solid, too concentrated, one shape.

At five to eight feet away, I knew. That was not fish.

Five feet

By the time it was about five feet from me, I wasn’t thinking at all.

My arms just went. Both of them, shoving the water out in front of me as hard as I could, like I was trying to push the whole thing away. Like trying to swim backwards while treading water. There was no plan behind it. My body did it before my brain had a vote.

And it worked. Or something worked. The shark turned away, fast, and as it turned its tail came up and broke the surface right in front of me. Then it was gone.

It was way bigger than me. I want to say six to nine feet. I am not a hundred percent sure, because I wasn’t exactly measuring, but it was big, and it was right there.

After

After that, I did not go that far out by myself again. I had finally gotten comfortable in the ocean, and a shark does not care about your progress.

This and an alligator at Silver Springs that rested its head on the side of my kayak are by far my two most intense wild animal stories. Two different animals, same thing both times: I didn’t decide anything. I just reacted, and I got lucky.

I can still see it. Clear water, clear sky, and one dark shape that would not spread out.