Comments on: Comments on 7021

Post number 7021

rdr — Sun, 15 Apr 2001 22:30:06 -0800

Tourists swimming with the fishes... Ok, more accurately swimming with sharks. Summer is coming and with it my little coastal town is starting to endure the first surges of tourist crowds. With the changing of the seasons comes the eternal question, just what can you convince tourists to spend money on? I live in great white shark country so it's unlikely that this particular tourist activity will take off locally. However, we have had problems with commercial shark chummers in the past.

By: Postroad

Postroad — Mon, 16 Apr 2001 05:33:53 -0800

Jeb Bush can get his brother to fix things. Toss a few Democrats to the sharks to keep them happy. Leave alone the registered Republicans.

By: dhartung

dhartung — Mon, 16 Apr 2001 10:27:34 -0800

It's not like we haven't had this problem in another form before. I remember when I was a kid, there were already restrictions but there was still a strong tradition of feeding bears in national parks. Photos of people rolling down the window of their car an inch or two as a docile monster pokes its nose up and nuzzles for food. Weren't they cute? Wasn't it special? Honey, what's that outside the tent?

By: J. R. Hughto

J. R. Hughto — Mon, 16 Apr 2001 13:01:13 -0800

"I like the feeling of something that is really scary but you know it's really safe," said Ms. Patunoff, a teacher from Plattsburgh, N.Y. But it's not really safe. This isn't a rollercoaster, it is a wild animal. The "sport" of Darwin Award winners...

By: bunnyfire

bunnyfire — Mon, 16 Apr 2001 17:57:18 -0800

Years ago on our honeymoon, my new hubby and I took a helicopter ride over Panama City Beach in Florida......we will never forget watching the crowds of swimmers frolicking in the surf......while unknown to them a school of rather large sharks was hanging out less than fifty feet beyond them....needless to say we did not go swimming that day.

By: rcade

rcade — Mon, 16 Apr 2001 19:03:37 -0800

You could see the same thing in any helicopter ride over Florida coastlines, Bunnyfire. Discovery Channel runs footage every year during Shark Week. The ocean's teeming with them, but almost all of them are harmless. I live two counties north of Volusia County (Daytona Beach) in Florida, which has one of the highest rates of shark attacks in the world.

By: bunnyfire

bunnyfire — Tue, 17 Apr 2001 03:48:04 -0800

I bet the average tourist has no idea.....of course no one told me about Palmetto bugs before I moved down there either.......(for the uninitiated these are roaches the size of a small motor vehicle -and every house has them.)

By: rcade

rcade — Tue, 17 Apr 2001 06:19:32 -0800

Here in Northeast Florida, the biggest danger to tourists and locals isn't sharks; it's rip currents. Three people have drowned in the last month, including a 16-year-old athlete. He apparently didn't know what to do when you get pulled out (swim parallel to the shoreline until you get out of the current, which is usually no more than 200-400 feet wide).

By: rdr

rdr — Mon, 07 May 2001 23:17:35 -0800

This whole idea of paying to swim with sharks fascinates me. It turns out that there is a market for recreational swimming with great whites.