The Scariest Thing that Ever Happened to Me.....

The scariest thing that ever happened to me occurred while in one of the most beautiful places in the world. My family was in Hawaii, and I couldn't have been older than six or seven. My father and I were snorkeling around in the clear warm waters, I believe on the big island. Either way we were following a large lazy sea turtle examining all the colorful fish and wildlife in the area. I have always been a strong swimmer so we were able to go a couple hundred feet offshore. As we were swimming along in hot pursuit of the turtle, a spear-fisherman crossed our path, dragging behind him a decently long line of fish that he had caught. I didn't think anything of it at the time but now I distinctly remember there being a trail of blood. At that age I didn't put together islands in the pacific plus bleeding fish equals trouble (I guess math wasn't one of my strengths). About seven minutes later, and out of nowhere a huge Black Tip Reef Shark cut us off by no more than four or five feet from our faces. I would estimate this shark to have been around eight feet long, which is a very formidable foe when you are in first grade. But as terrified as I was, i could rely on the fact that my dad would not let anything happen to me and we safely made it back to shore. Luckily for him, he was also a good swimmer because I used his back as a jungle gym the whole way back!