15th Street in Del Mar has a flat, sandy bottom and a rolling beach break perfect for surfers.
That flat, sandy bottom is also a favorite of sand sharks, who seem to come out around sunset to feed.
So here are Jonathan and Eric on The Great Sand-Shark Hunt.
Eric reassures us that they are harmless and that it’s just fun to spot the creatures as they wiggle around in the shallows. (Right.) The water is super clear so they are pretty easy to spot. (Oh goodie!) We become aware of each sighting with their whoops and hollering.
Lucy and I are content to sit this particular event out and so we remain uninvolved. She is just tired of being sandy and wet. I, on the other hand, am having visions of Richard Dreyfus in Jaws screaming, "We’ve gotta get a bigger boat!" (Hey, a shark is a shark.)
Instead, I have my camera in hand and unenthusiastically acknowledge their shark findings with a nod and a sarcastic "That’s so great, you guys!" In the meantime I can’t get that Jaws music out of my head – "Da-dum. Da-dum. Dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum . . ."
I wonder if this ability to freak myself out is just a typical mom-thing or if it’s a by-product of having been brought up in a Cuban home. (I’m also trying to calculate how long it’s been since their last meal and whether the three-hour-before-you-go-swimming rule applies to wading too, but that’s not important right now.)
I try distracting myself by taking more pictures of the sunset and try thinking of another song.
"Show me the way to go home,
I’m tired and I wanna go to bed . . ."
~ from Jaws, 1975
Sigh. 😉
[UPDATE: My friend, Pam correctly pointed out that it was the Roy Scheider character, Chief Brody,
who said the aforementioned line. Sorry about that. It just goes to
show that I haven’t seen Jaws since it first came out in 1975 and I was
so royally freaked out that I’m pretty sure I took a vow right then and
there never to watch scary movies again, but that’s not important right
now. =D]
“Mary Ellen Moffet . . . She broke my heart!”
Sorry to correct you (in my ambien and it’s 11:30pm and CJ is in her room and I keep peeking in on her) all of that to say that I’m pretty sure it was chief Brodie saying that stuff about needing the bigger boat, not Hooper. I can’t believe you still go to the beach after that movie. I am really uncomfortable at the beach. I am sure watching Shark week didn’t help! Hope you are on your way home….we need you home! This probably will not make sense in the morning! Love You!
This brings me back to a time, when we foolishly went swimming in Miami Beach at dusk, and a sand shark came along, and was positioned smack dab between us and the shore. “Tiburon ! ” everyone shouted, and ran onto the beach, except me and my ex. who were trapped. His smart thinking saved us from a shark encounter- as he grabbed my hand and we walked parallel to the shore- in the opposite direction. The shark got bored with us, and headed the other way to scare other swimmers. Needless to say- some lessons are harder to learn in this life than others…. Yasmin
Oh, I love that movie! And a very good friend of ours sings that song to his two year old son when putting him to sleep. A little scary, yet, but he loves it: I’m tired and I wanna go to bed…
Hi honey,Thanks for a wonderful vacation. 🙂
– Eric
Yasmin-If it had been me, I would have been scarred for life. (But I’m a wimp that way.)
Pam-
I think that even if we did have TV, I would have chosen to skip “Shark Week.” =D