The Coming of Vacation

Soon we are going to vacation in North Carolina. My wife wants to spend time on the beach. I am terrified of water. I am not that excited. Also, I am not a big fan of being bitten by a shark. Which is a concern when you are splashing around in the ocean.

Appealing to her logic I pointed out that people could drown. She was unimpressed. Explaining that being bitten by a shark would increase the likelihood of drowning quite a bit, she was even less impressed. She is clearly made of pretty stern material.

And it is clear I am going to end up in North Carolina (suggested motto; Hurry, the sharks are hungry and we don't want them to eat us).* But, I am not going in blind.

I found a website that tracks shark bites. They plot these occurrences on a map. To the right is the portion of the map that represents North Carolina. I added the blood red vignette. It seemed to drive home the point.

Further, I did a little research on how to avoid being bitten by a shark.

Rule 1. Don't act like food when in the water.

While researching ways to avoid a shark bite I came across a story about a shark caught off the coast of Louisiana that had a Nebraska license plate in it's stomach. This tells us two things;

A. The license plate is the hardest part of the car to digest.

B. Sharks will eat anything. Everything looks like food to a shark.**

With that in mind I revised Avoid Being Bitten by a Shark Rule 1.

It now reads;

Rule 1. Don't get in the ocean.

So if the shark is coming to get me he will need to be lurking in the shower, or maybe the hot tub.

If you are interested in keeping track of shark bites, (and who isn't?) they have a fine Facebook Page, and a great website.

And if you are interested in my vacation stay tuned. I will be providing updates, and fielding questions about staying safe in a hospitable environment.

* To anybody from North Carolina who might be reading this I am very excited to visit your fine state, and not worried about sharks at all. Or at least not very much. In fact I may have accidentally visited your beautiful state once when we took a wrong turn coming out of Gatlinburg TN. But, I am not sure where we ended up. It wasn't Pigeon Forge, though. It was beautiful, though. Thank you for your time, I will see you soon.

** And a Labrador, go figure.