The Dangers of Snorkeling in the Red Sea...

I had a very vivid and real-seeming dream last night, during which I knew that a large shark would come and bite Rachel on the leg during our planned snorkeling excursion. So, I was practicing moves to drive the shark away, including punching him in the gills, poking at his eyes, pulling on his nostrils, and throwing a large tourist at him, in hopes of convincing him to let go of Rachel.

When I woke up, I half-believed we might actually get attacked by a shark and so I spent the afternoon vigilantly scanning the water around Rachel, my anxiety gradually heightening as the day went on. Luckily, none of my practiced-in-my-dreams-shark-fighting skills were called into play, although I thought about using some of them on a very aggressive man in red board shorts who kept standing on and caressing the corals, in a vain attempt to get our attention. I settled for giving him several underwater rebukes, involving sharp, slow-motion shaking of my fingers and head. 

It was a relief to finally walk out of the water, onto the beach (although the dangers of land and ghost sharks have been well-documented here and here). We stopped to talk to a chatty older gentleman on holiday - just as we were about to walk away, he said "Oh - you should come back tomorrow morning, around 10 a.m. There is a small 3 foot sand shark who hangs out in the mornings, out around the reefs where you were just snorkeling."