Sharks

This is the one thing thought that really bugs me and has done throughout my entire 25 years of triathlon training and competition. It is my one big fear and I am not ashamed to admit it. I can understand why some people don't ever go in the sea to swim if they have a fear of anything that is under the surface of the water. Swimming over a submerged breakwater can make you jump if it suddenly looms up beneath you when you are swimming along parallel with the shore. Some people don't even like it if they touch a piece of seaweed. Swimming into an empty coke or a piece of driftwood can halt your rhythm for a moment. So why should I not admit that I am afraid of sharks?
There it is, out in the open. I am afraid of sharks.
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Sharks 

On holiday in San Diego, we took part in a sea swim there

We enjoyed it so much that we entered it again the next year

Some time after we saw on the television news where

Another swimmer practising for the same event I was aware

Killed by a Great White Shark, in an attack so rare

So horrendous I could only read the news and stare 

Solana Beach, California, where we had so often been

Thank God, when we swam, Dolphins were all we had seen

Off our English shores we don’t have creatures so mean

We are assured that our water is safe as well as fairly clean

Those who fish here say that Sharks are almost unseen

 And they hardly ever come here to grace our scene 

Only in the height of summer do Basking Sharks appear

Harmless creatures trawling for plankton gracefully they veer

Mouths bigger than dustbins lids out there beyond the pier

Maybe mistake me for plankton in my swimming career

I find the logic of its feeding habit is not entirely clear

A shark of any shape or size would fill me heart with fear 

I have seen sharks when I swimming of a Florida shore

One of the few holiday memory’s there that I still deplore

They were only little but I thought, two of many more

Maybe they were harmless; but present, and way inshore

My confidence and valour doesn’t stretch to sharks, be sure

My fear is meeting such a creature not seen here before