No! Now I can't tell DS there is nothing to worry about here in NE. He still won't go to the beach - - no way, no how. And my neighbor told him yesterday that she saw a sand shark in the shallows at Misquamicut, so he's even more afraid then he was.

We'be been substituting beach days for days at Six Flags NE, but it's a poor substitute IMO. Guess we'll have to get season passes next year . . .

Sand sharks are nothing to worry about. I've swam with them at the beach across from Chick's in West Haven, not to mention catching them by accident several times, both there and in Milford at Gulf and East Broadway Beaches. They won't bother you. Makos, on the other hand, are a different story.

I just happened to click on this and saw my name! We are just a skip and a jump to Wells (and just a skip, no jump needed, to York). I'll have to tell DH about this. I didn't hear about it, but I've been holed up in my home office procrastinating about my papers for my masters degree.

I guess everyone has different fears. I'd swim in the ocean any day before I'd go on a roller coaster. Being hurled to earth in a metal car scares me way more than sharks do.

It's pretty rare to hear about shark bites in NE.

Sue, check the 11:00 news tonight-- it was on again tonight at 6, specifically channel 13.

Oh well, I missed it. I've been home from work since last Wednesday. I am supposed to be writing 2 20+ page papers to finish my masters degree. Instead I have been, (1) cooking, (2) cleaning, (3) going to Ethan Allen, (4) playing with the cat, (5) going for ice cream at the Nubble lighthouse.

So, it is now 11:25 on Monday night and I have 24 1/2 hours to get myself out of this mess. Who needs sleep!

I'm sure you'll hear about it in talking with people around town.

Good luck in getting that paper done!!

Whaddya doin in here?? Git ta work!! :-)

You still here?

Hi Bill, I'm back. I finally went to sleep at 6:30 and got up at 11:45. DH shouldn't have let me sleep that late, but he seems to think the motto, "never wake a sleeping baby" applies to wives as well.

I am almost finished with 1 paper, 1 more to go. I have until midnight, I guess. I know I shouldn't be checking in here, but every once and awhile I need to get away from defamation and section 230 immunity!

Not a problem. Chances are pretty good that 9 out of every 10 people that come in here have other places they should be, or other things they should be doing, too, myself included!! :-)

Paige-- Another report, this time in Mass-- a woman caught a world record blue shark-- 11', 364 pounds. Dey's gittin closer!!

I can't hear you! My ears are plugged! La la la la la la lah!

If I don't know about it, I can honestly tell me son that I have never heard of it happening there, you see. :-) I mean, what are the chances of it happening to us twice?

Well, I finished. One paper turned out ok, the other seriously is horrible. If they pass me it will be a miracle. I don't know what happened to me. I have turned into such a procrastinator. Oh well, I might have the first F of my life. The I would need to take another course, at a cost of about $3k. Sigh. I'm stressing now.

(pounding my head on the desk) I should have started it sooner!

What you need is a good drunk to relieve that stress!! Know of any frat parties? LMAO

If not, kick back with your husband, some soft music, and a MAGNUM of Dom!! :-)

You're a riot!! LMAO

Ohmigoodness! We just got back from that area (KB). The kids wouldn't go in the ocean beyond their waists (which was actually OK with me!). DH kept trying to assure them it's far too cold for sharks. They were skittish since we were in FL last summer at the same beach where a young girl was fatally attacked by a shark two days after we left. Ugh! I don't remember ever worrying about this when I was a child at the beach.

You're a riot!! LMAO

BTW, that comment was directed at PaigeCT-- I was in a hurry this morning, and forgot that part!!

DUHH!! :-)

I just looked up some statistics and Maine had zero shark bites in 2004 (the most recent year I could find). Mass. had 1, and Mass has a LOT more swimmers.

Sue-- this time it's right in your neighboerhood!! One spotted this evening in the shallows at York Beach.

I read it was a basking shark. They don't bite people. One fisherman said he saw it and there was no second witness.

REALLY!! I didn't hear that!! That's bigtime unusual, being that they usually stay way out to sea. You're right-- they feed strictly on plankton, like whale sharks. They get almost as big, too.

I think the size is what they were primarily worried about - that people would see it and freak. IF it even existed. One person saw it. Could also be an overactive imagination (or a whale, who knows).

Here is an article from the local paper (Portsmouth Press Herald) about how the sharks seen around here (York, ME) are not "man-eaters".

Time to go swimming!

Here is a link that might be useful: Sharks don't want you for lunch

Yeah-- you could always do like that adrenaline junkie they showed on Discovery during "shark week", and grab ahold of a passing 2000 pound great white shark's dorsal fin, and go for a ride!!

I am the furthest thing from an adrenaline junkie that there is (I will never understand skydiving, for example)! I guess growing up around the water, and swimming miles offshore from a young age, has made me not have some of the fears that others have of the water.

That said, I visited a friend in the Florida Panhandle several years ago when people were getting bitten right and left, and I only went in up to my thighs (I figure anything big enough to get a good sized bite out of me would need to be in deeper water). So I'm not stupid about it!

Um, Sue, I hate to tell you, but that's just not true. It's a great theory, and it's the one I passed on to my son while we were in the Outer Banks. But it turns out big bull sharks will come right into the shallows. A man was killed and his girlfriend maimed by what was probably one or more bull sharks, and they were walking in the water, not very deep. DS and I were only standing up to our knees when the four-foot bull shark bumped him, and it could have done some serious damage!

Well, I didn't really think it was true either! LOL! I just tried to rationalize it since I was in Florida in January and I wanted to go in the water, dammit. ;) At least in the shallows someone might get me pulled out of the water quick. What do you think? (a little more rationalizing)

All the more reason to stick to New England! We only have to worry about rip tides (Hampton is vicious) and freezing to death in the water.

If Paige is talking about what I think she's talking about, it was a series of attacks down between Daytona and Titusville just a couple of years ago-- about a dozen or so attacks in about 2 months-- all perpetrated by bull sharks, and several of which caused the loss of at the very least, a limb, and in atleast a couple of cases, the victims died from loss of blood.

The real danger in this world is not sharks, it is coconuts. Every year,around the world, ten times as many people are killed by falling coconuts as are killed by sharks. Stay in the water, far away from coconut palms.

ROTFLMAO