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GREAT HAMMERHEAD SHARK! One hot summer day a few years ago while visiting my brother Harry at his beautiful home on the Cape near Wellfleet, I told him I wanted to paddle my inflatable kayak out on the ocean. Harry went with me to the shore by Marconi Point where I prepared to inflate and launch. He seemed quite concerned, and finally restrained me, hand on arm, “Phil, I know you like to ‘go over the horizon’, miles away, but something tells me it’d be better if today you go on the Bay side this time, please.” I could tell Harry was really serious, so I said “Okay, no problem,” and tossed the kayak back into the car. We drove the short distance back by his home to Lieutenant Island and found a good spot to launch. A few minutes later I was paddling out into the Bay on the falling tide. It was a lovely day, sunny and hot, and it felt good to ‘raise a sweat’, paddling hard and strong, pushing the inflatable to its miserable top speed (not much!). An inflatable years ago in those days was NOT speedy, especially with a canvas sewn over the thin plastic hull to keep the plastic from being cut by mussel shells (sharp!) when launching or landing upon the Cape’s beaches. Wet canvas does glide, but not much. The big advantage of an inflatable is EASY TO CARRY; fly to any Atlantic or Caribbean or Pacific or European or Asian sea and launch in minutes. It takes a few minutes to inflate all 3 or 4 compartments, throw in a 2-gallon folding plastic jug of water and sack of food and launch for a pleasant 1-day or 2-week paddle. Another BIG advantage is BUOYANCY, even when full of water from surf or storm, no capsizing, easy to bail water out when you can. A rigid plastic sit-in kayak wallows and capsizes with as little as a gallon of water in it. Try surfing without shipping some water! Sit-on-top kayaks are delightful to surf in warm weather, but send delicious meaty aromas to nearby sharks or hungry Orcas from wet shorts and feet when out on sea. So much for inflatable versus rigid kayaks.
As I was saying... I was paddling out to sea when I noticed a woman walking into the water from the beach... pausing for a minute or two... then walking back up the beach. A few minutes later... a shark fin came nearby, slicing through the water effortlessly. I realized the woman had peed into the water and the shark happened to be so near it thought I was the aromatic source! Never before had a shark investigated my kayak so aggressively as this one did, circling repeatedly and hungrily. It was much bigger than my 9ft inflatable and had a large hammerhead with eyes on each stalk tip, swinging first one eye then the other to keep me in view. I became alarmed when it turned over, bottom up, and intensified the swinging of the hammerhead eyes in my direction while closing its circling toward the kayak. I ‘thanked’ my brother mentally for sending me in this direction instead of the open Atlantic, and prepared for whatever. This was IT.
Just then I realized I was drifting over a reef and there was less than a foot of water beneath me.
AHA! I hopped onto the reef, clutching the kayak between me and the Great Hammerhead shark, bare feet clinging to barnacle-encrusted reef, anchored firmly. The shark exploded in terrifying lunges while I rammed its eyes and hammerhead with my paddle, now a spear. I felt like a throwback to spearman ancestors who survived such encounters to pass on their seed to descendants like me. And would you know? The Great Hammerhead was too big to get over the reef to butt me down and take its bites. I was whapping its beady eyes with HARD jabs with my ‘spear’ and the falling tide was lowering the level of water over the reef. Finally the bleeding Great Hammerhead rolled off the reef and disappeared into the Bay.
I raised my ‘spear’ (now somewhat bent) and screamed exultantly and triumphantly (like my blessed ancestors). Throughout all this, the inflatable was untouched and still buoyant. But my feet were cut and bleeding and I quickly hopped into the kayak so as not to attract any more meat- eaters. I reached down into the water and found I’d been hopping up and down on barnacle-encrusted BRICKS. I flipped one into the kayak and paddled off the reef for home, enough excitement yet, no more, solve the mystery later.
The falling tide had exposed more of Lieutenant Island’s shore, so much more that I faced a long and muddy walk, dripping kayak upon my head, to where I’d launched from. Eventually I could see figures waiting there, and waving. It was Harry and Peggy his wife, and Rosalee, my wife. It was a heart-warming welcome, and DID I have a story to tell! Harry and Peggy told me why there were bricks on a reef out in the Bay off Lieutenant Island.
Many years ago when the sea level was lower, they used to hike on the reef, which was then a long ridge with a road leading to a schoolhouse. The brick I held as a souvenir, was from the old schoolhouse. I have it now, inscribed with name and date, as a treasured memento. In all the excitement of the encounter with the Great Hammerhead shark, I didn’t take a picture of it. Sorry, the sketch will have to do. I do have the Brick, and a stronger paddle to replace the bent and battered ‘spear’.
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