The Journey Begins

I’ve decided to write a blog. I’ve never written one before. I’ve written a lot of other stuff, but never a blog. I’m not even sure how to begin.

I will start with who I am and why I’m doing this. I’m going to assume that at some point someone will read this who doesn’t know me, so I will give some basic information that will be repetitive and probably boring for those who already do know me. I’m a married mother of 5. I’m a homemaker. I am apprehensive about taking risks, and won’t so much as ride a roller coaster out of fear of being injured or even killed in some freak accident. In a lot of cases, fear controls my life. It stops me from doing things that I may have otherwise enjoyed. That is why I have really surprised myself with my recent interest; the reason for writing this blog in the first place; Sharks. Yes, sharks - those toothy predators of the deep - the same ones who strike fear in many, many people. They have been fascinating to me most of my life, but it hasn’t been until recently that I have started to fall in love with them. Yes, I’m sure it sounds strange. But I am drawn to them. I want to be near them. Study them. Swim with them. Touch them. Get to know them.

It all started about two months ago. I was watching some old episodes of Shark Week on Netflix. I’ll admit it – at first I started watching it to see the stories of the shark “attacks”. I think I was trying to fuel my own fear, while somehow nurturing my interest in them. But then I realized that I was finding things out about them that I’d never known. They are methodical. They are intelligent. They can even be gentle. Yes, gentle. As I watched humans interacting with these animals, I started to feel a soft-spot developing. My curiosity quickly turned into a craving to know more. I started to absorb everything I heard. I wanted to remember it. I wanted to tell people that they aren’t all bad. They’ve been given a bad rap. I started to feel defensive of them.

But how can I ever pursue this? I am not a scientist. I don’t even like science. I’m terrible at math, which is associated with science, especially when thinking about becoming a scien-tist. Truth be told, I’m not even a good swimmer. But who else gets to be so close with these animals? If I can’t be a Scientist, what can I do? Well, I still don’t know. So this is where I’m going to start. A blog. I’ll probably never be an Erich Ritter or Rocky Strong, but I want to learn as much about sharks as I can. And I want to do what I can to inform others that they aren’t the man-eating, boat chomping, mindless killers they’ve been made out to be.

This is what I’m going to do. It’s an idea similar to what Julie Powell did with Julia Child’s cook book. She wanted to get through the entire cook book, and try every recipe. There were 524 recipes in the cookbook. She wanted to complete them all in one year. She did.

According to the Florida Museum of Natural History Ichthyology Department, currently there are 375 described species of sharks. I am going to attempt to study, and blog, something about each one of them in one year’s period of time. I am going to get my information primarily from the Internet, and possibly from books. Maybe TV shows, articles or magazines. I will do my best to cite each reference. If you choose to follow along with me on this journey, please be aware that I am an amateur; a newbie; wet behind the ears. I may cite incorrect information, and I am completely open to correction from any knowledgeable source. If you are a studied shark professional, please feel free to correct any errors I may make.

I have two goals with this project.

1) Learn about this animal that has captured my attention, and pass on that knowledge to anyone who reads (or comes within earshot - haha).

2) Test my own seriousness. If I am looking to study these animals, and maybe even swim or dive with them some day, I need to be serious. I want to make sure this isn’t some fly-by-night fascination that will dissipate when something new comes along.

So, here we go. I hope you’ll join me. I’m scared to death I won’t be able to do this, but I’m going to try.