The Man in the Grey Suit

Posted by Shaun.

I just had a 4 day weekend and took advantage of it by going to the beach with some friends.  Because of some heavy rains last week, the normal road that we take to a beach we like was closed from flooding.  Determined to go to the beach that day, we took a different route and were still able to go to our beach.  Fortunately we were the only ones at the beautiful beach the entire day.  After eating lunch and playing with the kids for a while, my friend and I loaded up all of our spearfishing gear into my raft and went out about a mile to go to where the parrot fish hang out.  I was at the front of the raft as we were paddling out and saw a huge tiger shark slowly swim by about two feet away from me and about two feet deep.  It was definitely longer than I am tall and as wide as a car tire.  I knew there are hammerheads and tiger sharks in that area but didn't think that I would see any.  We were where we wanted to be so I threw the anchor over the edge of the raft, put on my gear, and decided to try to spearfish by just sticking my head in the water instead of jumping in.  Both of us were real nervous being in an inflatable raft with a shark hunting nearby.  Wasn't long before I decided to just jump in and take my chances.  I love spearfishing too much to let this shark have all the fun.  I caught a couple of fish and realized that I couldn't even see my buddy anymore.  He stayed in the raft because he is sane.  The sun was setting and the bright reflection on the water made it so I couldn't see a thing.  I swam a couple hundred feet in the wrong direction before I finally saw him.  I figured by then the blood from the fish would have attracted the sharks, so as I was swimming toward the raft, I tried not to be distracted by the fish that were taunting me to shoot them.  I finally got to the raft and jumped in to find a very sea sick friend.  He leaned over the side of the raft and fed the fish real quick before we started paddling back to shore.  Our wives of course thought that we were crazy/stupid/irresponsible/etc. when we told them of our adventure.  At work on Monday, word of our run in with the shark got out and people kept coming up to me saying, "I heard that you met a man in a grey suit".