The Sharks went Hungry



Peter, Esther, Katheryn in DR

In the early ‘90’s I was living in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic with my second wife and two small children. My parents flew out from Australia for a visit and decided to stay for a while. This was fine with me as I always had a good time with them.

One afternoon, Dad and I were sitting on our balcony looking out over the ocean yapping about our lives. After a few too many beers, the old man decided to get all serious on me. “I’m getting on a bit Peter,” he said in his most sombre and earnest voice. “When I go son, I don’t want you making a fuss about it. Just stick me in a box and shove me into the ground.”

Dad always managed to give me an opening for what some people claim to be my rather warped sense of humour. “I’ve got a better idea,” I beamed. “The farmers sometimes butcher cattle out on a point near Sosua and the offal brings in the big hammerheads—they tend to hang around there at night. What I’m thinking is that I could hire a boat, fill it with tourists and they could pay to watch a human being devoured by sharks.”

Dad and Mum

The look of horror on Dad’s face was priceless. “I don’t want the sharks to get me,” he blurted, his voice edged with fear.

“But you’ll be dead,” I assured him. “I wouldn’t throw you in until you were dead.”

“Ooooo, I still don’t want the Noah’s* to get me,” he implored me bleakly.

As it turned out, he was back in Australia when he went, some ten years later. We scattered his ashes at a place where he liked to fish. It was a freshwater river so there were no sharks to get him.

*A common term for shark in Australia. It’s rhyming slang—Noah’s arc = shark.