The shark thread, especially the world record tiger shark being caught off the Cherry Grove (CG) pier got me reminiscing…
When I was in the eighth grade, a girl friend of mine & I bought a two-man inflatable raft at Wings near Cherry Grove. The next day we took it out, along with the two paddles and hit the CG waves with our family. Quickly we drifted out beyond our parents and older siblings, and the oars were practically useless as we quickly drifted south from the CG inlet towards the pier. Our family went to the lifeguards who began blowing their whistles & waving us in - of which we had no control over our destinations. After 15 to 20 highly stressful minutes of drifting we came upon the pier but we were all the way out at the very end of it. The fishermen reeled up their lines and yelled to us to grab on to a pylon if we could get to one. Happily are drift angle changed just enough to where we could grab the last pylon on the pier.
It was at that time two lifeguards ran out into the surf and swam all the way down the edge of the pier to us clinging to the pylon. As an eighth grader who had learned to use many vulgar descriptive terms over my middle school years, I had never heard such violent use of profanity as what we heard from those lifeguards as they approached our boat, and then as they pulled us in to safety on the shore.
The two of us had no idea of the story of the largest tiger shark in the world being caught there, or the potential of such large aggressive sharks in the area. I think it would be valid to say that the lifeguards were much more aware of the danger & of how any pier is a shark attractant.
Y’all pissed anybody off at the beach?
When I was in the eighth grade, a girl friend of mine & I bought a two-man inflatable raft at Wings near Cherry Grove. The next day we took it out, along with the two paddles and hit the CG waves with our family. Quickly we drifted out beyond our parents and older siblings, and the oars were practically useless as we quickly drifted south from the CG inlet towards the pier. Our family went to the lifeguards who began blowing their whistles & waving us in - of which we had no control over our destinations. After 15 to 20 highly stressful minutes of drifting we came upon the pier but we were all the way out at the very end of it. The fishermen reeled up their lines and yelled to us to grab on to a pylon if we could get to one. Happily are drift angle changed just enough to where we could grab the last pylon on the pier.
It was at that time two lifeguards ran out into the surf and swam all the way down the edge of the pier to us clinging to the pylon. As an eighth grader who had learned to use many vulgar descriptive terms over my middle school years, I had never heard such violent use of profanity as what we heard from those lifeguards as they approached our boat, and then as they pulled us in to safety on the shore.
The two of us had no idea of the story of the largest tiger shark in the world being caught there, or the potential of such large aggressive sharks in the area. I think it would be valid to say that the lifeguards were much more aware of the danger & of how any pier is a shark attractant.
Y’all pissed anybody off at the beach?
