Shark Week Reality
Check Please
We were sitting in the van at South Beach State Park Campground in Newport getting ready to visit the aquarium. “Open Sea Shark Tunnel Exhibit” I shouted. OMG I always wanted to do a shark tunnel. Mo grabbed her phone (camera). I grabbed mine. This was happening.
The thing about childhood movie dreams is they lurk in your brain like dormant code, waiting for the right trigger to activate. Walking through those glass doors at the Oregon Coast Aquarium, I was eight years old again, watching Jaws for the first time and thinking holy cow, if they could make those shark tunnel things in movies, it would be so cool to walk down one in real life.
But here’s what nobody tells you about fulfilling childhood fantasies. Sometimes the brain holds onto the excitement and conveniently files away the terror. Standing at the entrance to that curved glass tunnel, watching seven-gill sharks and sandbar sharks glide overhead, I suddenly remembered why I used to check behind the shower curtain for weeks after watching Spielberg’s movie.
The sharks were massive. Beautiful. Completely unbothered by the parade of humans gawking from below. One seven-gill came so close to the glass I could see individual scars on its hide, probably battle wounds from decades in the Pacific. My hands shook slightly as I raised the camera.
Then something shifted. Maybe it was the way the light filtered through the water, or how the sharks moved with such casual grace, but the old movie terror dissolved. These weren’t Hollywood monsters. They were ancient survivors, older than trees, perfectly adapted killing machines that somehow seemed... peaceful.
I spent hours in there. Taking photos, watching feeding demonstrations, reading every placard twice. Mo had to drag me out.
Biking back to the van, I realized something. We should stop at the Fish Market.