Hudson and Nurse Sharks

“Tiger Sharks are a bit more effective than Great Whites.”

-Hudson

When my mother told me and Hudson that we were going to Curacao for spring break to snorkel, Hudson furrowed his brow much like a concerned cartoon character and said that his eczema would pose a problem. The problem with having chronically itchy skin and the self-control of an eleven year old, is that small open scratches tend to pop up between his fingers, the crook of his elbows, and backs of his knees. He’s had it since he was born, and besides the potential threat of death by shark via droplet of blood in the water, he’s never been bothered by it.

We never saw any sharks, or any other large animal that goes into attack mode at the scent of blood. We did see Nurse sharks at the aquarium though. Twelve grown Nurse sharks swimming over top one another in two feet of water. A situation such as this seemed normal in this aquarium home to a lot of empty tanks, unsupervised petting pools, and more than one dead fish.

It was feeding time for the sharks and we lined up next to the shallow tank. They could tell it was feeding time, and were beginning to pile on top of each other near the trainer so that dorsal fins were peeking out of the water. Hudson and I were given a metal loop with a fish carcass strung onto it like a pasta necklace. There was a huge sucking sound as a Nurse shark lurched it’s body forward and consumed the fish. The other sharks thrashed in the water, sloshing it out onto the floor. After feeding, the trainer took each of our hands and ran them along the bumpy back of the sharks. I asked her why they were so bumpy, and Hudson butted in with “they’re reptilian, what do you expect?”

They’re reptilian, what do you expect. This is the child who calls himself “The Biologist.”

Sometimes I forget that he’s eleven and that he doesn’t know everything. He didn't notice the discrepancies in the aquarium, he was too wrapped up in explaining the decline of the lionfish.

When I imagine Hudson getting attacked by a shark, I don't see us in the middle of the ocean. I see us inside the shark tank, fighting over a dirty fish carcass. He sees that scene out of Finding Nemo where the recovering blood-aloic is set off from Dory’s bloody nose.