via Adam-Troy Castro, two deaths of note, for two very different reasons

[lagilman]

1. George Francis, 112. Oldest man in the United States. A black man born in the nineteenth century, who witnessed two world wars, the walk on the moon, the civil rights movement, and the turning of the twentieth century. A citizen of the south during the Jim Crow era, he retained his clarity and lived to vote for Barack Obama.

2. Brian Guest, 51. Australian snorkeler, long-time campaigner for shark conservation. Taken thirty meters off-shore by a great white. (yeah, I know. I know. Higher risk of being killed in a freak unicyle accident, etc etc. But as someone with a long-standing and quite logical shark phobia, allow me my moment)

Comments

[spiziks.livejournal.com]

Oh, man. I have my own shark phobia (which also extends to whales and any other large, moving object in the water), and to me, this has to be the worst, most terrifying way to go. I won't even enter the ocean.

So I'm totally with you.

[lagilman]

Whales? Srsly?
Wow. You're making me look all sorts of well-adjusted there, Piziks!

(my phobia does not keep me from snorkeling every chance I get -- although I do break into a cold sweat when I dive into a school of fish and part of my brain's going 'y'know, you can't see what's on the other side of this school, looking for lunch...')

True story: I was snorkeling off the Keys a number of years back, and saw a large gray shape moving about fifteen feet below me. 4/5 of my brain started screaming and gibbering and doing Panicked Monkey Dance. 1/5 of my brain managed to think "that's a nurse shark, I'm almost certain of it. I'll be fine. I'll be fine, I'll be fine..." I then swam, quite calmly, back to the boat, climbed out, took off my mask, and announced that I was ready for the drinking portion of the trip now, thank you kindly....

[martianmooncrab.livejournal.com]

sharks are like bullets, you never see the one that gets ya. When diving off Pandora Cay in 1986, I watched a very large shark swim closer and closer to us, I thought the sound of my tank hitting the reef behind me would have made it go away. My dive buddy was very nonchalant about the entire episode.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry, I have to savor the irony, at the same time as I respect the man's principles.

And vow NEVER EVER to go into the water off Australia. Or for that matter NoCal. NEVER.

[melinda-goodin.livejournal.com]

Erm, it's really not that dangerous down here. Truly.
I've dived at least twenty times around the Great Barrier Reef and never seen more than scaredy-reef sharks.

But I don't dive at night or near seals. And I wear a flourescent wetsuit.

It's important to note that Brian Guest knew his likelihood of getting taken by a shark were high and he expressed the wish to his family, should it happen, that the beast in question not be hunted down and shot. True to his beliefs to the end.

Melinda, an Aussie diver.

[lagilman]

Many years after the fact, I saw an arial photo of the shoreline where I'd swum since I could swim, down the Jersey shore, and saw that, a few hundred feet away from the main splashing area there was a swirling pool of sharks. Apparently they've been there most years.

No Great Whites, obviously. But still enough to trigger my "eeek" reaction.

I used to get cold sweats just seeing photos of sharks, or watching a program they were on [not movies, interestingly enough -- it had to be a docu. I knew if it was fake, and that didn't trigger the phobia.) Over the years I've forced myself to deal with it enough that I can watch tv and not shudder... and have even contemplated going to the "Shark alley" aquarium display, just to say I'd done it. Mind-over-phobia, or masochism? You decide...