Spear Fishing, Anyone?

(re-run)

Aaron and Katie decided to go spear fishing. He had just bought her a wet suit, and he was looking forward to introducing her to hunting in the ocean. The pair had been to Fort Bragg, where they dived for abalone. This time, Aaron took Katie to Monterey Bay, and they went through the gates of Pebble Beach. They walked down a steep cliff and went into the water.
They saw a school of anchovies shimmering as they went by. It was a super calm day, and the visibility was amazing, about 25 feet. Aaron stayed close to Katie. Although she was a decent swimmer, she wasn’t used to the surges, tides, and wind.
They each had their spears, and Aaron let Katie get ahead of him. Then he heard Katie screaming through her snorkel. He paddled as fast as he could to get to her.
“Shark! Shark!” she said.
Aaron knew Katie was overreacting. Maybe she’d seen a seal or a small leopard shark.
“No, it was big!” she said, gasping, when he got to her.
Maybe she’d seen a six gill or a seven- gilled shark. They could get up to 7 or 8 feet long.
“Those kinds of sharks don’t bite surfers,” Aaron assured her.
Katie was a rookie diver. She was overreacting, he was sure of it. Great whites didn’t swim though kelp forests, but there was a slight gap in the kelp.
“I’ll prove it,” he said.
Aaron gulped a big breath and dived down to the bottom, about fifteen feet. He hugged the bottom and swam until it dropped off to about 45 feet deep. Suddenly the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. He turned around and swam back up to Katie.
Katie was crying.
“It was as long as a car,” she said. “It was fifteen feet in front of me.”
“If a shark wanted to attack you, you would’ve never seen it coming,” Aaron said.
Still, she was shaken, and he had sensed something ominous when he was at the drop-off.
They got out of the water and went to the car in the parking lot. Aaron pulled up sharks on his cell phone and showed her leopard sharks, 6 gills, and 7 gills.
Aaron drove her to another dive spot where everyone goes snorkeling. But Kate wasn’t having it. She knew what she saw.
She hasn’t gone spear fishing since.