Yes, I saved a surfer from being chomped into mushy human flotsam by a bull shark. I heard my story even became internet click bait, so to speak. But listen. I have a confession. I briefly considered simply letting the dumb schmuck get totally Sharknado-ed.
“Wow! But I thought dolphins were super friendly! I thought Flipper was mans’ best saltwater friend!”
I know, right. Truth be told, I was slowly drifting away when the meathead started to whine like a big baby. I was seriously close to just saying “screw it” and waltzing away from the whole fiasco. But then I was finally like “aaahhh, sonofabitch.” So I swam a beeline toward the shark, thrashing my snout and making tons of clicks with my nasal air sacs. That scares sharks shitless for some reason.
BTW, “you’re welcome, brah.”
Thinking back on the incident, I admit that a part of me is shocked and ashamed that I briefly considered vamoosing. But I guess, in the end, I knew that the guy’s pathetic yelps would ring in the fat lobes about my lower jawbone that transmit sounds to my inner ear, and the stench of gushing blood would forever foul my senses. (Never mind that marine biologists believe dolphins lack olfactory nerves. We can smell garlic breath on a flounder from 100 yards away, as they say). Plus, I’d have to explain to my four calves why daddy didn’t help a fellow mammal from being mauled by one of nature’s most well-oiled killers.
The point is, I almost consciously decided not to intervene. Does that make me a bad dolphin? Honestly, I’m not sure. I’m not sure. I’m certainly not apologizing, though.
Don’t get me wrong; it’s nothing personal. I didn’t know that surfer from Dick Butkus. He was just another intruder in the vast ocean. Maybe that’s the thing. The fool was asking for it when he ventured into a world that’s far, far from his mama. Sky is for winged creatures; ocean is for finned creatures; land is for Hollister, fanny packs, and male rompers, right?
What’s more, sharks are natural predators, plain and simple. And that knucklehead—fucking “Blake,” I later found out is his name—would have appeared to the poor shark as nothing more than a piping-hot sirloin slathered in garlic butter, “hanging ten” onto a serving platter. Circle of life, Blake.
Listen. I know dolphins—hell, I’m friends with dolphins—who, when unexpectedly thrust upon a human-shark nexus, have consciously decided to lean back and watch the grim spectacle of nature taking its course. Frankly, I can’t say I begrudge them one damn bit. I hope I’m not betraying any of my blowhole brothers by admitting their confessions, but they’ve told me the ensuing bloodbath was therapeutic as hell. A dolphin I once cavorted with told me that, after the shark left the scene of a particularly brutal encounter with a snorkeler, he pretended he was a featured attraction at Sea World, performing flips and jumps about the leftover suburban chum. Said he actually jumped through a, what he called a “hoop,” of the dope’s floating small intestine. You should’ve seen the gleam in his eye as he relived the moment. Another dolphin buddy once professed something I can still recall verbatim—“Being a front row spectator to a hammerhead utterly mutilating the overboard drunk ponytailed captain of a Royal Huisman schooner was nothing short of euphoric.” Lordy, that must have been something.
Regardless of your moral opinion of me, I can tell you that there’s a burgeoning clandestine community of dolphins who live for the twisted pageantry of a shark attack on a “land-fucker.” The community grows as the ocean dies. These dolphins enthusiastically seek shark-vs-human encounters. They hang out near heavily populated ocean resorts, and lie in await in hopes a hungry shark comes a-strollin’ by. For most dolphins that’s merely a gateway hobby. Eventually, the temptation to be party to a good ol’ fashioned land-fucker-feast-fest becomes too consuming, and many go on to coerce sharks to commit attacks. You heard me right. The methods of coercion are sometimes unsavory, sure, but ultimately totally worth it…so they tell me. I even know of a few coral reefs where these dolphins gather late on Saturday nights and swap, not just their gruesome stories, but personal souvenirs from the landlubberly turds whose grisly demise they’ve spectated: tufts of hair, skull fragments, goggles, arm floaties, Speedos, those mass-produced necklaces with the shark teeth sold to douchebags and heartland spring breakers at beachside gift shops. Those dumbass things trade like Michael Jordan rookie cards.
Believe you me, for every one dolphin that saves a human, there’s another five, maybe six, dolphins who revel in the kill.
Now please excuse me. I need to go talk to a shark about a horse.
Matthew Baya
http://tinyurl.com/q5bfg63
