Friday's Shark Advisory

It was cloudy all day with the temperature reaching 79. The wind was coming from the NW which usually brings some pretty good shelling, but the waves were really churning up the sand today. Just after I walked out onto the beach it started lightly raining. There were some shells, and I just had to walk for a while to see if perhaps the big waves would throw a Junonia or a Lion's Paw up on the beach in front of me. But, I am sad to report, the only ones I carried home were some jingles, kitten paws and a couple buttercups.

There were very few people on the beach around resident access 1. A couple people were on their evening walk, and a group of teenage boys walked past me. That was it, until a Sanibel Police officer came driving up to me on a four wheeler. I had seen her coming from the east. She asked if I had anyone out in the water, and I said no. She then handed a bright pink paper to me and said that there had been a shark bite, just a little east of where I was. She then went on her way and I saw her stop again further down the beach to talk to more people. The paper she gave me said that the City of Sanibel had put out a Shark Advisory. The Sanibel Police were called to Dosinia Condos on West Gulf Drive, just after 4 PM today. When they arrived they saw a 15 year old male, who appeared to have been bitten by a shark, while swimming in thigh-deep water. He was then transported to a hospital.

Now, that put a damper on my evening, I kept thinking how awful it was for the boy and his family. I wondered if they were just starting their vacation, or was this a terrible ending to their vacation? Either way, it's terrible. Hopefully the boy will be fine and have a story to tell his friends when he gets home. Later tonight there was an UPDATE!

The rain didn't seem to be letting up and I was already getting pretty wet, so I decided to give up my pursuit of the perfect shell and walked away.

When you enlarge the first two photos, you can see the saltwater mist in the air, further down the beach.





For your cyber-shelling pleasure.






The end of this video is a little strange. You'll hear the sound of a 4 wheeler and then the police officer asking me if I had anyone out there, I said no and because it all caught me off guard, I lowered the camera as I shut it off. So, that's the end. It actually sounds like somebody might have hit me on the head and knocked me out. :-)