Six Minutes

In keeping with my inadvertent summer theme of oceans and sharks, I must share with you this amazing story I found on the web. Now, maybe it is really amazing to me because of my own backstory.

My aunt, Lily, took me to see JAWS in the theatre when it was first released, and I was about 11. This incited a long-term fascination with sharks, which included making my mother take me to Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute the next summer, because I was sure I was going to be a marine biologist just like Richard Dreyfuss, and that’s where his character studied. Then, my science teacher got me a dogfish to dissect for independent study and I was so smitten with him that I took the shark to all of my classes that day. I am sure that the smell of formaldehyde really enhanced my high-school popularity.

(note to MyAdoringPublic – and you thought my planaria regeneration story was an aberration, huh?)


So, it seems that there was a Monster Shark fishing tournament in Martha’s Vineyard today (home of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, and Edgartown, where JAWS was filmed, and Carly Simon).

And hopefully the picture will be up for awhile because the tiger shark these dudes caught really is a monster. I have never seen anything like it. It weighed in at 1,191 pounds and was 15 feet in length. That is a whole lotta shark.

Now, here is the other part I can relate too, as these folks have my kinda luck…

The shark was so big that it put a lot of drag on the boat, and they arrived six minutes late for the closing of the contest and were disqualified. The winner was a 378 pound porbeagle shark.

That, as they say, bites.