I’ve spoken to quite a few windsurfers since the terrible news about Stephen Schafer, the kite surfer in Florida. There’s probably nobody who’s ever sailed the ocean who hasn’t had The Fear at one time or another when a waterstart wasn’t coming together. We all hear about the overwhelming odds against being attacked by a shark, though we also know those odds don’t take into consideration all the things we waterpeople do to drop our silly asses in front of sharks. Locally on Long Island you rarely hear about a shark siting (my one experience at the Bowl last June notwithstanding.) But still, we know we’re taking a variety of risks out there, and this is a ringing reminder that sharks are on the list, however remote the odds. According to news reports, the kiter Schafer was known to believe in the buddy system…friends were puzzled to learn that he’d been out alone.
This merits particular attention given one amazingly positive note about the incident: A local lifeguard named Daniel Lund spotted Schafer floating in the water 400 yards off shore. Lund paddled out with a rescue board, saw that Schafer (still alive) was surrounded by circling sharks, and went in to get him anyway.
What commitment. What balls. Let’s hear it for Lifeguard Daniel Lund.
Beyond Lund’s heroism, it’s worth noting he was able to approach a badly bleeding person in the water, drag him onto a board, and paddle out of there, even with sharks all over the place. This is all the more reason to value the buddy system: if one of us somehow manages against the odds to get hit by a shark, the rest of us have every reason to believe we can get in there and get our friend out without becoming victims ourselves.
That's my .02
R.I.P. Stephen Schafer.
(If you're not familiar with the blog of windsurfer/kiter/marine biologist James, this happened in his local waters, and you may want to check out the several posts he did on the incident.)
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