Alert! Sharks Have No Bones!*

In a blithe hunter-provider mood, my favorite skipper once yanked a yard-foot-long shark right onto the 24-foot-long sailboat we were cruising.

Three muscular feet of dove-gray anger thrashing about, in what turns out to be a –– maybe –– six-foot long cockpit.  

At every thrash, those blank yellow cat-eyes not blinking and that grabby mouth with the stadium-seating rows of triangular serrated teeth snap snap snapping...

 

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We weren't wearing shoes, and we had neglected to arm ourselves with a winch handle or any other species of bludgeon.

Forced to retreat to the cabin top, we were obliged to wait for the fish to, as the captain put it, "simmer down."

Oh, we ate shark nuggets that evening, of course we did.  

As my hunter-provider often remarks about the swimmer vs. Jaws issue: he's eaten a lot more of them than they have of him.  ​

(*"Alert! Sharks have no bones!" is the most awesome Archie McPhee catalog headline of all time.)