<![CDATA[Karrie J. Butler

It was several months into my college “gap year” in Costa Rica, I was attending classes at The Spanish Language Institute in San José, when one of my classmates suggested that we take a day cruise out on the Pacific Ocean side of the country, to Isla Tortuga.

The Turtle Island Day Tour
The tour offered the usual things. A covered, open deck tour boat, snacks on board,

The beautiful beach at Isla Tortuga

lunch on the island, snorkeling, beach chairs, sun and fun. And on that, they delivered.
Everyone onboard was pretty chill. Upon arriving at the island, my classmate took a dingy ride to the beach, while I decided to join the others in the water.

The others snorkeled. I was content to just be suspended in the warm turquoise waters, just off the beach, drifting lazily inside of a life ring from the boat, a perfect, circular silhouette against the sun-drenched surface. To the large Tiger shark patrolling below me, I wasn't an artist or a student, I was a shape. To him, I was a turtle, in other words, lunch.
The tour offered lunch on the beach, I just didn’t know that I was going to be the main course.

I drifted lazily inside of a life ring from the boat.

Taste Testing
He struck as I had my legs dangling straight down to better navigate the water. From my thigh to my ankle, his sharp teeth etched into my skin. There was no Hollywood thrashing, no cinematic scream. In the salt and the adrenaline, the nerves didn't even register the intrusion. It wasn't until I hauled myself onto a boat with a group of Americans speaking English, that their crisp white decks turned to red. Looking down at the shallow, semicircular map of teeth marks etched into my skin, the reality set in: I had just been tasted and then rejected, by one of nature’s greatest aquatic killers.

I simply didn't have enough meat on my bones for his liking. The reason why, humans are not usually on a shark’s menu.
Clearing the Water
As in the movies, we cleared everyone out of the water. It doesn’t take long when you yell out the word “Shark”, that people scatter. A fun day in the water at the beach had suddenly turned into something more frightening, but the tour company did a beautiful job of saving

The bite went from my thigh down to my ankle.

the day, focusing on a delicious lunch on the beach and ferrying us all back safely to the mainland.
The Lesson Learned
We returned to San José that day with a story written on my skin, a permanent reminder that the most profound shifts happen in complete silence, without a big Hollywood production.
It forces you to look at the world differently, but not through a lens of fear, although, I no longer swim in the open ocean in a life ring. The lesson etched into my leg wasn’t that we should stay completely out of the ocean, or spend our lives scanning the shadows in terror. Instead, it was a profound realization about our own capacity. Danger rarely sounds an alarm before it grips you, and yes, even in the calmest waters, you can still find sharks. They are simply a natural part of the landscape.

True peace of mind doesn't come from pretending that sharks don't exist, or from waiting around for the next storm. It comes from knowing that when the water suddenly turns red, you are capable of hauling yourself back onto the deck. We cannot control what patrols the deep, but we can always control our own response. I swim in calm waters with open eyes now, not because I am afraid of what lies beneath, but because I finally know the strength of my own stroke.

The day of the shark bite.

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