I agree with Ferreter as to sharks.  There is one thing you can count on
where sharks are concerned - you absolutely can't count on anything about
sharks.  They are totally unpredictable.

All those nice documentaries you see on TV showing how harmless they are:
they must be made by people who can predict from behavior whether a shark is
likely to attack or not, but I suspect someone is behind the camera with a
harpoon gun. I've observed too many times when sharks did the unexpected.
Living near the ocean, I know for a fact that shark attacks are kept off the
national wire service lines.  You may read it, played down, in the local
newspaper, but they don't want word getting out - it hurts tourism too much.
All such attacks are called "rogue sharks" - and those rogue sharks are
around all the time.

We lived up on top of a sand dune 30-35' above sea leavel, right on the
beach.  We had an excellent view down into the water.  People would have
fled in terror if they saw what we saw.  Six to eight foot sharks swimming
daily between them and the shore as they stood in shallow water, and their
children played along the shore.  We also had local boys who fished for them
on weekends (out of tourist season) and caught them, right in front of our
house in the day time.  In most incorporated areas shark fishing is
prohibited until after midnight.  But the sharks are right there in the Gulf
of Mexico off the Panhandle, and people have been killed and bitten - but
you never read about it in your newspaper.

Sylvia S. Edwards
Huntsville, Alabama
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