To protect the net from dead-fish-hungry sharks, the shrimpers in some localities
take the following precaution: They shoot or otherwise kill a small shark, cut him
open and bleed him white. Then they lash the carcass of the shark to the forward
floats on the net. This, they claim, keeps other sharks away until the net had been
made “sweet” by being pulled through the water for an hour or more.
According to the preponderance of accumulated data and actual experience
with sharks, a man forced down in tropical waters is justified in feeling reasonably
safe from shark attacks. You may expect something like the following to happen:
The commotion caused by dropping in the water and freeing your parachute,
very likely, will scare all fish away for the time being. Presently—perhaps within a
half hour or so—a shark may show himself. He probably will circle you a few times,
at a distance of 50 yards or more. He will be close to the surface, and doubtless his
dorsal fin will break water. And he won’t be a pretty thing to look at.
Then he will approach closer. He may come up and stare at you from a dis-
tance of a few feet. The experts say you are to take no action; merely remain calm,
and continue riding in your life jacket or rubber boat as though no shark were near
you. Keep moving, however. Don’t let the shark mistake you for a corpse. Pres-
ently, they say, he will go on away.

18


The thing to keep in mind is this:
(1) There is very little danger from sharks.
(2) People suffer more from shark fright than from shark bite.
(3) Staunch a bleeding wound as soon as you are free from your parachute.
This not only may prevent sharks from being attracted to you, but it may keep
you from bleeding to death.
(4) Keep your head while waiting to be picked up by rescue plane or boat.
You can't win from a shark in a biting match, but you can win in a thinking match.
(5) Don’t believe anybody’s shark stories, even if he can show you the ocean in
which it happened. A shark is a fish, and a fish story quickly gets out of hand. All
fish stories are not lies, but very few are ever handicapped by statistics.
(6) If you are on a life raft instead of in a life jacket, don’t dangle your bare feet
overboard. A fish, and not necessarily a shark may mistake your toe for a feather
spinner and chew it off. -
(7) And above all, don’t be frightened just because a shark happens to be in the
same ocean with you. If the truth were known, the shark probably is more frightened
of you than you possibly can be of him.