I have a tradition (since 2000, I think) where, sometime in the first week of the new year, I drive to see the sunrise at Cocoa beach. I like to spend a few hours watching the beautiful scene, giving myself time and space to pray, meditate, wander around, and generally get centered for the upcoming year.
This year, T-Bone accompanied me to Cocoa, where we were greeted by an absolutely amazing sunrise, replete with a flock of gulls that would zoom and flutter about, putting on an amazing show:
But then, a few minutes later, we saw this:
Look at the middle-left of the image: that’s right! A shark was cruising through the water, not 30 feet off the beach (notice the pigeon for scale). Actually, there were two sharks, though I only got a shot of one. The fins were only above water as the waves would break over them, so it was hard to get a good view. Was this shark a sign of some kind? Was God warning us about something?
Later on, not realizing that if two sharks were a sign of anything, they would surely import “DON’T GO IN THE WATER!”, T-Bone and I took a swim in the ocean. What could be more relishing than being able to go in the water on January 2nd? It was a bit cold, but quite bearable and refreshing. And, as we have now proven, shark infested. Unless, of course, one of you is a marine biologist and believes the picture is actually of a dolphin.
4 replies on “An Omen-ous New Year”
Typically with sharks you see the caudal or tail fin above water along with the dorsal fin. With dophins there is only a dorsal fin. In your photo, you only see a dorsal fin, leading me to believe that the photo could be of a dolphin. That doesn’t, however, rule out the possiblilty that they were sharks. The size of the dorsal fin in the photo is a bit disturbing. Whatever the case, you are both lucky to be alive.
Trent, you may be right. Although, while it is not in the picture I believe I saw a tail fin at other points (which may in fact be why I thought there were two sharks to begin with).
Trent, it was a SHARK, dangit! Don’t rain on our parade! Besides, dolphins aren’t 22 feet long and don’t come flying out of the water with a bloody surfer between their jaws like this one did 30 seconds before Jonathan took this picture!
I knew there was a reason I don’t surf.