My personal experience - Near miss of a shark attack

When I was twenty-five, I was recovering from a major illness. My best friend, Heidi, suggested that we go to her family's cabin in Maine for a week. I thought her suggestion was a wonderful one. We scheduled a day and a time to leave. The two of us, accompanied by my then 9 year old boy, set out to have an adventure. An adventure we got.

The third day there, my friend suggested that during low tide we should go out and check out the bay. Sounded like fun and what harm could there be - right. Wrong! We watched as the tide made its way out of the bay. I would say that 90% of the ocean water checked out for a few hours, we put on our sneakers, but my son only had his flip flops, off we went to investigate what was under the ocean in the bay.

An hour out, we decided to stop on a rock that seemed vacant of mussels. We laid down on the warmed rock and chatted. My friend and I was awaken by a very scared 9 year old boy. It seemed that we had fallen asleep and my 9 year old was just playing with some crabs as he noticed that the tide was coming in full force. We all kind of panicked.

Heidi was convinced that the water should not be that high yet and we could walk to the shore before the ocean came in. Wrong! A few yards off the rock and we were swimming. I grabbed my son and made sure he was a head of me at all times. Heidi was behind us. When we came to shore, my son told me he lost is flip flop just as we were getting out the water. I was sure it was just below the surface, so I went back in the water just as Heidi was making her way to shore. She, too, was convinced it was just under the water.

We swam a little ways out and could not find it. Just as I was about to go back and tell my son that I would buy him new ones, Heidi found it. Just as she bobbed up from the bottom, I saw a fin. A big fin. I yelled at her, her eyes became wide and pointed excitedly back towards me. It seemed a fin popped up right behind me also. I turned in the water to see what it was and got bumped in the water. Heidi screamed for me to swim and now!

The other fin had swam away from her, but the one that popped up next to me was coming right for me, again. We both swam and I could have sworn that the fin was gone as Heidi came up besides me. I got bumped by something very big. Heidi got to the bank before me. She pushed my frantic son to the ground so he would not come after me in the water. She told me that she could see the fin following me like it was toying with me. I swam as fast as I could, just as I got to the waters edge, there was no more shore.

Heidi pulled and pulled at my arms to get me out of the water and back on the bank of the bay. I pushed my sneakers into the wet sand and tried to get my barrings. I climbed up and turned breathing heavy as my son came to hug me. Heidi and I turned to see that the fin was just below us and it was a huge shark. The shark was about fifteen feet in length. I just about pooped my pants. Heidi came to hug both of us and we left to go back to the cabin. We never went into the bay again - with or without the water.