The other day was July 4th, and I found myself constantly thinking about one of my favorite horror movies. No, not Independence Day. Jaws.
I, like many other kids, was obsessed with sharks. I have a clear memory of using an old cassette recorder to record myself reading a series of informative animal pamphlets. To this day, I couldn’t tell you a single other animal that I read about, but I distinctly remember reading about tiger sharks with drama and vigor: “The… TIGER SHARK… is a solitary predator…”
Something about sharks has always captured my mind. Maybe it’s the graceful and calm way they glide through the water. It could be the distinctly robotic look to their eyes, almost like they’re not even using their eyes, but are instead relying on some innate predatorial sense borderlining on the psychic. Then again, maybe it’s the sense of danger they poise.
I’ve never been one to fear sharks, though, or water, either. I’ve always loved the ocean, surfing, fishing, boating, snorkeling, and swimming (I was on the swim team for a total of seven seasons; I’ve always loved the water).
But I know people who won’t go into the ocean because of having seen Jaws. Some people see the movie and can’t go into lakes or even pools. Personally, I was enthralled by Jaws from the moment I saw it.
I was six or so, I want to say, and I’m sure I was watching it on TV with my Dad, which means it was surely a censored version of the movie, but nonetheless, it didn’t feel like a horror movie to me. Sure, there were elements of horror, but it didn’t scare me.
Well, to each their own, I suppose. I read Jaws when I was eight; which was when I first found out that it was a book and when my parents had recognized that I was better served reading novels (or “adult chapter books,” as I called them) than the middle-grade and elementary-school fiction I’d been reading. I read through it, didn’t ask questions about the sex parts (why risk not being allowed to read “adult chapter books”?), and then proceeded to read everything Peter Benchley had written that was available at my local library (I particularly enjoyed White Shark and The Beast. I was less of a fan of The Island and The Deep. The Girl from the Sea of Cortez and Rummies were not books I particularly enjoyed, but my feelings on the collective works of Peter Benchley really aren’t supposed to be the point here).
I then read Steve Alten’s Meg and The Trench (Both great books; the rest of the series hadn’t come out by this point).
My point is: I consumed ocean-horror from a young age, and it never stopped me from taking a swim in the ocean.
Flash forward to 2021.
My now-wife and I were visiting a mutual friend in Maui, and he’d rented a boat for the day and was taking us around the island to various snorkeling spots (I told you before and I’ll say it again: I love snorkeling). My fiancee (I had proposed the day before this snorkeling trip) was still dealing with the lingering effects of Covid, and her lung capacity made it so that she couldn’t comfortably snorkel.
Our friend took us to the third spot of the day and dropped anchor. I looked off the side of the boat at the dark blue of deep water.
“We’re snorkeling here?” I asked
“No,” my friend replied, pointing towards the beach, about a thousand yards away. “You’re snorkeling over there.” He explained that he wasn’t allowed to get his boat any closer than it was; the couple of boats that were next to the reef had special permits to be there, and he didn’t feel comfortable leaving the boat in open waters like this.
Well, okay then. We didn’t have fins, but that was fine: I had been on the swim team. Never mind that I hadn’t swam in several years and wasn’t keeping up with any kind of exercise program. I’d be fine.
Breaststroke was always my event, and I knew my breaststroke kick would be more effective than my standard flutter kick, especially without fins.
I jumped in and swam off. I made it about fifty yards before saltwater got in my snorkel, made me choke, and I had to swim back to the boat to catch my breath before going again.
The swim out was otherwise uneventful. I was full of energy, was excited to get to the next reef, where there were supposed to be plenty of sea turtles, and generally was able to just zone out and swim onward. I came up for a breath on every stroke, and kept my eyes forward.
The reef, unfortunately, was crowded with tourists, and there were no turtles in sight. I allowed myself to float a bit, resting as much as I could, but realized that the swim back would take a long time, and I was already tired. I’d have to start heading back soon, and wading in the reef wasn’t actually restoring my strength.
I took a deep breath and headed back. I decided to use my snorkel throughout the swim back, thinking it would make for an easier and more natural breathing rhythm. But, this meant that my eyes were looking downward.
The safety of the reef disappeared very quickly. The ocean floor dropped and I was no longer above sand, but above more water. My breath caught and I had to come up for a moment.
I treaded water for thirty seconds or so, trying to catch my breath, but now beginning to get into my own head with fears. I’d seen a blacktipped reef shark earlier in the day chasing a sea turtle into an underwater cave. I knew there were sharks in the waters.
If there’s a shark around here, I’d never see it coming. And if I did see it coming, I’d never be able to escape it and get to the boat. If anything happens, I’m dead in the water. Doesn’t even have to be a shark. It could be a man-o-war, if they have those in Hawaii. Hell, it doesn’t even have to be a creature. What if you just get too tired to keep going? You don’t have fins, you don’t have a life jacket. What kind of an asshole swims out in the open ocean like this without fins or anything? You. Maybe a shark would be better at that point. Drowning is supposed to be really painful. If a shark bit me, maybe it’d end faster. Should I yell? No, there’s no way they’d hear me.
I had no choice, I realized, but to press on. I took a few deep breaths to calm myself down and swam on.
The rest of the swim is foggy. I remember a hopeless feeling for most of the swim, unable to tell moment to moment and stroke to stroke if the boat was getting any closer. But the strokes added up, and eventually I could tell that the boat was closer, which renewed my energy.
I collapsed onto the deck of the boat at some point, my legs and arms and chest on fire from the swim. I breathed heavily, just thinking how fortunate I was to have not had a current to deal with during the swim.
It’s one of the more frightening times in my life, and most of it was hypothetical. I hadn’t seen a shark or a man-o-war or even a fish during any part of the swim to or from the reef. But, I think this illustrates very well how the mind can create fears in uncomfortable situations.
Looking at the situation, I had the element of the unknown: I couldn’t see very far below or in front of me, and in order to see behind me I had to entirely twist my body, giving me a perpetual blind spot that I simply had to accept.
I certainly had threat of physical danger. Some of the threat was my imagination pulling monsters out of the unknown depths below, but much of the threat was my own impending exhaustion and the sheer length of the swim. It felt like a very real possibility that I could drown with no hope of rescue.
I was isolated, relying entirely on myself in an alien environment. Humans aren’t evolved to live in the ocean; I was at a disadvantage.
Fight, flight, or fright. I had my moment of fright, of panic, but made myself calm down and catch my breath. There was no enemy to fight, there was only one long flight.
Up until that day, I’d never been afraid of the ocean. But that day, stuck in the middle of the open waters, with no clue what could be around me and with no one else to assist me if anything went wrong, I found a little bit of that fear, and had to face it head-on.
Some fears are okay to face, but I do not recommend putting yourself into a dangerous situation. While I was able to complete my swim, I do not advise risking your life to face a fear. Maybe watch a horror movie and get a second-hand adrenaline rush instead.
Stay Shocked,
-Z