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SHARK ENCOUNTER |
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It was a cold drab day on Cape Ann in early June. We ventured out of Gloucester Harbor with a boat full of scubas on the charter vessel EASY DIVER for a day of underwater adventures. We were looking for the wreck of The Chelsea. I love to dive, but I wasn't particularly keen about diving in 40 degree water.
A short way out of the harbor, one of the crew members spotted something drifting in our path. At first it looked like it might be a whale at the surface. We cut the engine. But what we saw didn't spout. Perhaps it was just a log? Crewman Pete and I raced to see who could get into our diving gear the fastest and get into the water first to look at this "log". What I saw when I got in, looming out of the 20 foot visibility, was the biggest shark I've ever seen in my entire life. It was sailing, mouth open, towards me. I noticed that it had no teeth. For some strange reason I stuck my hand out and touched it as it cruised by. It was a huge basking shark! |
| Needless to say, our encounter that day was the talk-of-the-boat for months. Never would I believe I could have had a shark encounter so close to shore. People pay big bucks to swim with the "little" sharks in the Caribbean…here I was face-to-face with this mega-mouth in Gloucester waters. So impressed was I with this encounter that I went home and did an oil painting of it in record time. I am enclosing a picture of the painting, a photo of the "log" taken by Jennifer Griffin of Buffalo, New York, and a copy of a page from my log book documenting the event. |