Jaws?

            "11:15," Mama said.

            'Okay. We'll be back by 11:15.'

            Jack and I were going conch diving in a nearby shallow weedy spot. We brought one set of snorkeling gear, a net on a pole, a circular net meant for pulling things up from the bottom, and the paddle board. We planned to take 10 minute turns diving with the hand net in the seven foot deep water. Meanwhile the other person would paddle around the area on the paddle board ready to help bring up a conch.

            We decided that Jack would dive first. So he put on the mask and fins as I paddled over to the conch area. The moment we were there, Jack began to search and told me to stay near but paddle around. I decided looking for conches from the board was more interesting than watching Jack slowly swim around. As I set out I decided to carefully zig-zag the entire area. When I was on my third crossing I saw movement. "Ha! Little crab-in-a-conch can't escape me," I thought.  Wait a second, that's the tail of a fish. Surprise and amazement spurred me into action.  As I raced after it I noticed two things. One, I had been paddling for ten seconds at this rate, I was exhausted, and Sir Big Fishy was not working hard at all! Two, it had a hideous toothy grin. A barracuda? Just as I realized I couldn't keep this paddle rate any longer, I saw a long thin tail. Barracudas don't have tails like that only… "Shark! Nurse Shark!" I cried. Jack, whose head was underwater didn't hear me.

            "Dang paddle board," I muttered to myself as I struggled to turn the board. After what felt like eons, I finally got the board next to Jack. He was so busy struggling with a conch, I had to poke him with the paddle. The moment he surfaced, I practically screamed "Nurse shark" but Jack was already on the board, my face probably told him everything.

            We took a quick breather to relax. After we'd cooled off from the excitement, we decided to go looking for the shark. After a few minutes of extremely careful paddling, we spotted Sir Little Sharky (AKA Sir Big Fishy) following us. Phew, he's only a foot and a half long- it looked much bigger when my little brother was in the water nearby. It was harmless, too small to do anything or be a threat. Such a small shark would be terrified of Jack or me. After about 20 seconds of curiously inspecting the board, it decided to spend its time somewhere else. It took off faster, I nervously realized, than I could swim with fins or paddle the board. After that adventure, we headed back to Sila to take a break and swim in shark free waters, we hoped anyway.

            About five hours later, I opened my fish book and wrote down where I had seen the shark and how. This was an exciting experience and I was glad to see this extraordinary sea creature. This is just another reason why I'm glad we decided to go on this wonderful adventure. – Porter