Photo by Jason VanDorsten
My husband is always shaking his head over my love for animals, reptiles, and everything in between, and my enthusiasm for “helping” them when I see them in distress. Since today is Mother Ocean Day, I’d like to honor it by sharing one of my dearest beach memories.
From 1999 until 2005, my husband and I lived in Jacksonville, Florida, and we often frequented the beach. It’s common for people to fish from the shoreline, and common for them to catch things. Sharks (mostly small ones, sometimes larger ones) among them. On this particular day, a man caught a hammerhead just shy of two feet long. He was with his wife and two children and I believe they weren’t locales. I say that because locales don’t react like they did: whooping and hollering about catching a shark and taking pictures of it.
Well, I kept wondering if they were going to throw it back or keep it. It didn’t seem like they were planning on keeping it, but they were also taking their sweet time throwing it back. Which was upsetting me to no end, because the shark was starting to convulse and thrash and it was clear he needed to get back to the water.
Finally they threw it back, but not in time. The next big wave rolled it right back to shore. I ran to put it back in the water. Holding that shark in my hands was the most amazing experience. Have you ever studied a hammerhead’s eyes close up? Forget the weird placement on the end of its odd “nose.” Those eyes were jewel-like and filled with intelligence –and, in this case, panic. It was well aware how close it hovered to death.
I let it loose farther out than they had, but it was still too weak to fight the rollers. It washed up again.
After having held that shark and looked into its eyes, I felt a connection. I could not let it die. I scooped it up and swam with it past the breakers. Normally I had a healthy fear of the waves and going out too far past them. I didn’t even think about it at that moment. My only mission was to save that shark’s life, or at least give it a fighting chance to reclaim it itself.
I remember holding it and gently moving it back and forth while I treaded water. Then I dared to let it go. At first it flipped on its side and just sort of laid there. Just when I feared I’d witnessed its death, it sort of snapped to, circled around towards me, then dove for the bottom and out of my sight.
I like to think it made it, but I don’t know for sure. It never washed back on shore while we were there, so I’m hoping that Mother Ocean rejuvenated it and sheltered it once more.