Ocean of Fear: Sharks are SO Misunderstood!

It's Shark Week on the Discovery Channel. I usually wouldn't really care about this, given that I'm not especially fond of sharks, but the promos for Shark Week are everywhere...all the time. And especially the show, Ocean of Fear, about a real-life ship wreck and the shark-infested waters that followed. For weeks now they've been billing this special as a document of the "worst shark attack in history" in which several hundred men were killed. I was blowing it off until Entertainment Weekly called it the "Must Watch" of the week, and that's when I knew I had to tune in. It was a 2 hour special and it aired this past Sunday and Eric and I watched it. And, well, I feel mislead.


Since I didn't pay THAT close attention, all I can give you are some vagaries about the real-life incident. A US ship was on it's way back from delivering the first A-bomb to some US port, but on its way back home it was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine. Close to 1,200 men were on board and only 900 men made it off the boat. And this is when the shark stuff comes into play. Most of the footage from the show consisted of underwater shots of sharks circling several rafts with men inside. However, most of the time, they just circled, they didn't attack. What the sharks did attack were men who had already died from other causes - most often lack of water. In fact, I think that there were less than 5 attacks on men who were still alive. Over a 5 day period, only 300+ men survived. It was sad to watch, but I got the feeling about 3/4 of the way through that sharks weren't the enemy on this occasion. 5 attacks? 900 men? You do the math. It was primarily a special on what NOT to do when you get lost at sea. And the answer to that, my friends, is don't drink salt water! You'll go down faster than you would have without it.

The attack is still on record as the worst in history, but that's mainly because of the number of people and sharks in one place at one time. I was expecting some serious shark brutality and what I saw was that sharks are not so bad. Maybe they're misunderstood...and maybe I don't care because they're freakin' scary!