Floor 22 left all of us badly shaken. Yet the day was young, the weather balmy, and the beach was beckoning. We loaded everyone up and headed down to the private beach.

Malia our resident mayor went in search of seashells. On her expedition, she began a conversation with a diver. He started to explain all the intricacies of the sport. Next thing we knew, she was out with a mask and snorkel, finding beautiful sea treasures.

The gentleman gave Malia a bag to dive with, waved and set her loose!

Mom and I were taking shifts with Noah, shift taking still goes on to this day! I was ‘on duty’. All of a sudden, I heard commotion up the beach. People were scrambling out of the water and a black fin was swimming parallel to the shore!

I looked down the beach at Mia who was about fifty feet off shore, grabbed Noah and started running! She of course was diving and clueless to what was happening on the beach. I’m running, screaming at her, dragging Noah behind me.

This next part sounds like it’s made up, but Boy Scout promise, I assure you it’s not! Three stoners came up to me with guitar, and ask what I was yelling about. I pointed to the ominous black fin slowly making its way up the shoreline, and told them it’s a shark! They don’t miss a beat and the three of them began strumming the Jaws theme. Yes, yes they did.

My fight or flight had already been depleted from the floor 22 experience. Now it was in overdrive because a shark was coming after my baby girl. What world was I living in???

Malia finally heard my screams, saw my panic, and used all her swim prowess to swim to shore. At that moment a six foot shadow passed us, it’s tail swishing, it’s fin gliding through the waves. We just stared at each other wide eyed.

We walked back to our compound, and our family was completely unaware of the mayhem we just endured. We began retelling them about the shark, the musicians, Malia swimming to avoid being eaten! No one believes us! My twinsie, Mia and I both speak in superlative, this always makes for interesting storytelling, but our kin always take us with a grain of salt.

The musicians walked past us, still playing the Jaws theme ✔️ then, the ‘shadow’ turned and started making its way up the coast in the opposite direction, Mom and the kids saw the fin with their own eyes. ✔️

I called Joe, for the second time that day with another outlandish but true tale. My husband, the forever realist, told me it was probably a tarpon or at the very most a benign sand shark!

Regardless of the true nature of the 10 foot behemoth, we survived and lived to tell the tale! Just another family vacation, nothing to write home about!

Merry Christmas! Until next time!