I worry way more about deer and lightning. When you see a dead deer or a very dark spot that used to be a deer every 15 miles or so…
The shark attack thing did not cross my mind when swimming in the ocean.
So none of the above?
@caffeine_dude Remember, you’re more likely to be killed by a deer imbued with magical powers from being struck by lightning, whose name is Rick, has a Gatling gun, wears a leather jacket, and hates drivers than you are likely to be killed by a shark. Unless that shark has been hit by lightning, and has a Gatling gun-wielding deer riding it, at which point anything is possible.
@awk Wow! - don’t think I could handle the whole list but would be interested in: 1, 42, 275, 617 and 947 (assuming this is the not the last on the list.)
I’ve never been within, like, 500 miles of the ocean proper, though it’s on the ‘things to see when I stop being a lazy asshole’ list. Anyway, every now and then I see a story of a shark attack where afterwards the shark is hunted down and killed. That’s bullshit. I want it to be known should I ever be attacked by a shark that I want that shark to be hunted down and given a medal. If I was fuckin’ around in its food chain and got what was comin’ to me then that’s my bad and no one elses.
@SSteve Several people have starred your post, an action that I choose to interpret as agreement with my own personal desire to hear more about your story about once having nearly been killed by the ocean.
@rhrgrt It was the ocean’s usual MO I guess. My parents brought me to Ocean Beach in San Francisco on one of those few summer days in the late 60s when it was nice enough to go to the beach. I was standing in the water as the swells came in and out. I thought it was neat that it felt like the sand was moving out when the water went out. (At that point in my life I thought ground was stationary. I hadn’t lived through any earthquakes yet.) So after pulling me further out little by little, the ocean sent a big wave that went over my head, knocked me down, and pulled me out to sea. Luckily, my dad saw me go and ran out to save me. After that, the only time I’ve gone in the ocean above my ankles was snorkeling in Hawaii 20 years ago. And even then I was suppressing panic the entire time.
@SSteve
Going into the water at most beaches is pretty safe if you don’t go far out. The biggest risk is usually sunburn. Some beaches - I think esp in California - are famously, incredibly dangerous.
Some of them have dangerous rocks or critters, some have dangerous tides or currents or waves, and on some, the sand is unstable.
Always pays to ask. Or to not be the first person in, if you don’t know the beach.
Last time I was in the ocean I had fun, and then I realized I had forgotten sunscreen for three hours, and I spent the next couple weeks getting over sunstroke. But no sharks. I tend to be more concerned with drowning because I suck at swimming, so I tend to stay out of the water.
I had a job in the Navy flying full functional test flights of H-53 helicopters after the Naval Air Rework Facility civilian workers rebuilt them. (Only 2 unscheuled landings in the 3 years I was doing this.) Our flight zone was up and down Pensacola Beach. I took me a long time to go back into the water after I saw just how many sharks there are out there. They were swimming between people for crying out loud! And some of them were huge hammer-heads too. But attacks are very rare.
The general things I do is to stay out of the water early in the morning and late in the day when the sun is low and shadows are long, stay away from people fishing, especially piers, and try to stick with a group of other people in the water. Also, keep away from dolphins. While Flipper might’ve convinced people that dolphins will fight off sharks to protect people, the reality is they eat the same food and are often around each other, so if you see one, the other’s probably close. Keep those in mind and I don’t worry, except for the summer of 2015 when people were still getting bit by sharks even when they followed those principals, so I stayed out of the water that year.
“On 27 April 2006, while in Fiji, (Keith) Richards slipped off the branch of a dead tree (later to be reported by the international press as a coconut tree) and suffered a head injury. He subsequently underwent cranial surgery at a New Zealand hospital.[63] The incident delayed the Rolling Stones’ 2006 European tour for six weeks and forced the band to reschedule several shows. The revised tour schedule included a brief statement from Richards apologising for “falling off my perch.”[64] The band made up most of the postponed dates in 2006, and toured Europe in 2007 to make up the remainder. In a video message in late 2013 as part of the On Fire tour, Richards gave his thanks to the surgeons in New Zealand who treated him, remarking that “I left half my brain there.”[65]”
When I was about ten, I went out on a boogie board for quite a while without any sunscreen. I’m super pale, and got a horrible burn all over my back and upper arms. I was miserable for the next week or so. Sharks don’t even really cross my mind, but I’ve been terrified of sunburn ever since. (And drowning. I’m a bad swimmer. If a shark ate me, it’d just be scavenging my corpse.)
Years ago my swim team did a fundraiser. We sold tickets to watch Jaws on inner tubes in the pool projecting the movie on the side of the pool. We had tons of lifeguards as well swim team almost everyone was a lifeguard. During the shark attacks we would have one or two swimmers go out and swim under the crowd and just touch like a hand or foot. People even adults would freak it was awesome.
@sanspoint i am disturbed to tell you that sharks actually have two barbed penis like claspers that they insert and hook onto the gal shark so it would be more dicks then dick. Also it sounds painful.
@CaptAmehrican Well, there’s another fun party fact I’ll never forget. Between this, kangaroo dicks, and avian unified urogential orificies, I’ll never be alone again.
One of the best scuba dives I ever did was a shark encounter in Sint Maarten. Lots of sharks swimming around while we stayed down on the bottom hugging cinderblocks. REALLY an impressive dive. That said, I have seen lots of sharks on dives/snorkel excursions. None of them were the least bit interested in us. The tip above about time of day and location for swimming is a good one. As is good visibility in the water you are in. Over all if you remember that you are in their neighborhood and behave with some awareness you can eliminate a lot of the risk.
I’m surrounded by the best beaches in the world, and the longest shoreline of any state in the USA. Why would I ever venture into that nasty cesspool of saltwater called the ocean?
I worry much more about stingrays. My dad was stung by one when I was little, and it was pretty traumatic (for me, he doesn’t worry about them).
And then last time I was at the beach, I got stung by one too, and it hurt like hell for a day. So yeah, I’m gonna keep worrying about them.
I worry way more about deer and lightning. When you see a dead deer or a very dark spot that used to be a deer every 15 miles or so…
The shark attack thing did not cross my mind when swimming in the ocean.
So none of the above?
@caffeine_dude Remember, you’re more likely to be killed by a deer imbued with magical powers from being struck by lightning, whose name is Rick, has a Gatling gun, wears a leather jacket, and hates drivers than you are likely to be killed by a shark. Unless that shark has been hit by lightning, and has a Gatling gun-wielding deer riding it, at which point anything is possible.
Landsharks!
It’s reason #832 I steer clear of any body of water larger than a toilet.
@awk Wow! - don’t think I could handle the whole list but would be interested in: 1, 42, 275, 617 and 947 (assuming this is the not the last on the list.)
@Boiler3k Snake bite on toilet
/image grizzly shark
Landshark.
I mean… candygram!
I’ve never been within, like, 500 miles of the ocean proper, though it’s on the ‘things to see when I stop being a lazy asshole’ list. Anyway, every now and then I see a story of a shark attack where afterwards the shark is hunted down and killed. That’s bullshit. I want it to be known should I ever be attacked by a shark that I want that shark to be hunted down and given a medal. If I was fuckin’ around in its food chain and got what was comin’ to me then that’s my bad and no one elses.
@nogoodwithnames This blows my mind. I take my lifelong, relatively easy access to the ocean for granted.
@nogoodwithnames I offer up my left foot to said shark.
@PocketBrain /image left shark
@PSUClaus1
Gotta start a new line with the slash command
/image left shark
@f00l yup
@PSUClaus1
/image facepalm
When I was five, the ocean tried to kill me. After that I do my best to keep a healthy distance.
@SSteve Several people have starred your post, an action that I choose to interpret as agreement with my own personal desire to hear more about your story about once having nearly been killed by the ocean.
tl;dr: do tell.
@rhrgrt It was the ocean’s usual MO I guess. My parents brought me to Ocean Beach in San Francisco on one of those few summer days in the late 60s when it was nice enough to go to the beach. I was standing in the water as the swells came in and out. I thought it was neat that it felt like the sand was moving out when the water went out. (At that point in my life I thought ground was stationary. I hadn’t lived through any earthquakes yet.) So after pulling me further out little by little, the ocean sent a big wave that went over my head, knocked me down, and pulled me out to sea. Luckily, my dad saw me go and ran out to save me. After that, the only time I’ve gone in the ocean above my ankles was snorkeling in Hawaii 20 years ago. And even then I was suppressing panic the entire time.
@SSteve
Going into the water at most beaches is pretty safe if you don’t go far out. The biggest risk is usually sunburn. Some beaches - I think esp in California - are famously, incredibly dangerous.
Some of them have dangerous rocks or critters, some have dangerous tides or currents or waves, and on some, the sand is unstable.
Always pays to ask. Or to not be the first person in, if you don’t know the beach.
Last time I was in the ocean I had fun, and then I realized I had forgotten sunscreen for three hours, and I spent the next couple weeks getting over sunstroke. But no sharks. I tend to be more concerned with drowning because I suck at swimming, so I tend to stay out of the water.
I had a job in the Navy flying full functional test flights of H-53 helicopters after the Naval Air Rework Facility civilian workers rebuilt them. (Only 2 unscheuled landings in the 3 years I was doing this.) Our flight zone was up and down Pensacola Beach. I took me a long time to go back into the water after I saw just how many sharks there are out there. They were swimming between people for crying out loud! And some of them were huge hammer-heads too. But attacks are very rare.
@Mehrocco_Mole We’re not really food for them, so the bites seem to usually be curiosity or confusion.
The general things I do is to stay out of the water early in the morning and late in the day when the sun is low and shadows are long, stay away from people fishing, especially piers, and try to stick with a group of other people in the water. Also, keep away from dolphins. While Flipper might’ve convinced people that dolphins will fight off sharks to protect people, the reality is they eat the same food and are often around each other, so if you see one, the other’s probably close. Keep those in mind and I don’t worry, except for the summer of 2015 when people were still getting bit by sharks even when they followed those principals, so I stayed out of the water that year.
@jqubed
Them fuckers are impressive fuckers.
@jqubed This illustrates that you should not make your “shark-proof” cages out of PVC pipes.
Fun fact: More people get killed by falling coconuts than by sharks.
@DVDBZN that is a fun fact that I will put to good use
@DVDBZN
From Wikipedia
“On 27 April 2006, while in Fiji, (Keith) Richards slipped off the branch of a dead tree (later to be reported by the international press as a coconut tree) and suffered a head injury. He subsequently underwent cranial surgery at a New Zealand hospital.[63] The incident delayed the Rolling Stones’ 2006 European tour for six weeks and forced the band to reschedule several shows. The revised tour schedule included a brief statement from Richards apologising for “falling off my perch.”[64] The band made up most of the postponed dates in 2006, and toured Europe in 2007 to make up the remainder. In a video message in late 2013 as part of the On Fire tour, Richards gave his thanks to the surgeons in New Zealand who treated him, remarking that “I left half my brain there.”[65]”
@f00l Like any senior, his biggest risk is from falling, not sharks or lightning or…
@DVDBZN
fun fact: those coconuts are being dropped by sharks.
@Ignorant
I shame you, @Worm-Goat!
When I was about ten, I went out on a boogie board for quite a while without any sunscreen. I’m super pale, and got a horrible burn all over my back and upper arms. I was miserable for the next week or so. Sharks don’t even really cross my mind, but I’ve been terrified of sunburn ever since. (And drowning. I’m a bad swimmer. If a shark ate me, it’d just be scavenging my corpse.)
I’ve paid to swim with them while in the Dominican one year…pretty scary, but Zim glad I did it
What’s an ocean?
@Barney That blue stuff at the edge of the continent. It’s pretty far, though.
@compunaut It’s only blue at the edge of some parts of some continents. It’s gray/green at the edge of San Francisco.
@SSteve It’s blue on all the maps I’ve seen
@compunaut
@SSteve @compunaut this is where you say touché
@Barney
Perhaps across the rainbow from Kansas
@compunaut @jbartus ummmm… sorry, those blue parts are the LAND…
@chienfou you felt I was unaware of this? O.o
Years ago my swim team did a fundraiser. We sold tickets to watch Jaws on inner tubes in the pool projecting the movie on the side of the pool. We had tons of lifeguards as well swim team almost everyone was a lifeguard. During the shark attacks we would have one or two swimmers go out and swim under the crowd and just touch like a hand or foot. People even adults would freak it was awesome.
@sanspoint i am disturbed to tell you that sharks actually have two barbed penis like claspers that they insert and hook onto the gal shark so it would be more dicks then dick. Also it sounds painful.
@CaptAmehrican Well, there’s another fun party fact I’ll never forget. Between this, kangaroo dicks, and avian unified urogential orificies, I’ll never be alone again.
@JerseyFrank You want real nightmares? Google (at home) what a duck’s dick looks like.
@sanspoint
@sanspoint
/youtube scientifically accurate duck tales
I worry about sharks even when swimming in a pool.
One of the best scuba dives I ever did was a shark encounter in Sint Maarten. Lots of sharks swimming around while we stayed down on the bottom hugging cinderblocks. REALLY an impressive dive. That said, I have seen lots of sharks on dives/snorkel excursions. None of them were the least bit interested in us. The tip above about time of day and location for swimming is a good one. As is good visibility in the water you are in. Over all if you remember that you are in their neighborhood and behave with some awareness you can eliminate a lot of the risk.
I’m surrounded by the best beaches in the world, and the longest shoreline of any state in the USA. Why would I ever venture into that nasty cesspool of saltwater called the ocean?
@fuzzmanmatt
What part of Alaska is home?
@f00l good one! That’ll teach 'im!
I worry much more about stingrays. My dad was stung by one when I was little, and it was pretty traumatic (for me, he doesn’t worry about them).
And then last time I was at the beach, I got stung by one too, and it hurt like hell for a day. So yeah, I’m gonna keep worrying about them.
@Dweezle or jellyfish
Candygram
I cannot swim and the water at put beach is filthy you cannot see a quarter of an inch down. Who knows, Trump could be hiding down there.