The Merciless Alpha(erotica)

I almost ran downstairs, excitedly telling everyone hanging out in the crew’s mess about the change in plans due to the storms. We’d all learned to ignore the cameras that were always in the background. Doc joined us a few minutes later, and I took the time to brief everyone on the shark trackers I’d brought and how they worked. “I prefer to use them on a pole while I free-dive,” I told them. “I pick out sharks underneath, swim down from behind them, and push the tracker onto the rear of the dorsal fin. It won’t close unless the edge hits the middle of the V-shape, so you’ve got an eight-inch window when you push it forward. It snaps into place, which releases it from the pole, and you both swim away.”

“Why not scuba gear,” Bonnie asked.

“You’re in shallow water, and you are faster swimming without the tanks, and less likely to spook the sharks. The only good scuba strategy I know is to sit on the bottom with a bait box to bring them in, and try and tag them when they approach. You have to get them straight on or straight away to make it work, though. If they circle you, there’s no change to attach it.”

“The transmitters are coded?”

“They are numbered. You need to record the tag number and the length and species or any other detail so we can send it to the University of Miami registry at the end of the day. Here is what the tracking data looks like.” I used the computer to go to the site, pulling up the map showing the Cape Cod area. “So far, there are over twelve-thousand trackers that have gone live. Two-thirds of the tagging activity in this area is coming from sport fishing, the rest bycatch from commercial fishing.” The screen showed a mass of dots and tracks. “On the right, you can set it to display only the most recent locations or only a single species,” I said. I selected the most recent Porbeagle hits; a dozen dots appeared, all located in the Billingagate Shoals. “Going after shortfin mako would be extremely difficult while diving. Here are the spiny dogfish.”

“You’ve convinced me,” Doc said. “I’ll have the Captain head for the Shoals. If you are comfortable free-diving, pairs can try that. The rest of you will work off the Zodiaks or this ship, using scuba gear and bait boxes. Get some sleep, as there’s going to be a lot of water time tomorrow,” he said.

It turned out that only Bonnie had the gear and experience to free-dive with me, so the next morning, we took a Zodiak with a cameraman to water that was about twenty feet deep. We dumped a bait box over, basically a metal box with holes and chum in it to attract the sharks. The cameraman stayed down with us for thirty minutes, getting his underwater shots of us with the sharks. The rest of the time he stayed in the boat. He was leaving the rest to the fixed cameras he had on top of the bait box and the small cameras attached to our poles. For the next three hours, Bonnie and I dove the site repeatedly, tagging fourteen Porbeagle sharks, two spiny dogfish, and one Great White male that was about eight feet long. The cameraman pulled the bait box up, and we motored back to the Ocean Explorer for lunch.

The other three teams had much less success. With the need to change air bottles and rest between dives, their bottom time was limited. It was also more difficult for a stationary diver to see and tag the sharks. They had tagged fifteen Porbeagles, three Spiny Dogfish, and one ten-foot Blue Shark. The latter was a pleasant surprise to the divers operating off the main ship.Content © provided by NôvelDrama.Org.

After lunch, all the divers headed to shallower waters, like we had been diving in. By five, I had run out of tags, and the Porbeagle population had more tags tracking it than ever before.

With all of my tags in use, and the storm still sending high winds and seas into the outer Cape, we stayed inside the protection of Cape Cod overnight. On the bridge, I used a combination of recent sightings, satellite trackers, and a few of my cellphone trackers to propose a strategy. “There are Great Whites in the area, which we proved yesterday,” I said. “The problem is the lack of deep water. You can see almost all the sightings are in the deep channel on the south edge of Billingagate Shoals, here off Wellfleet.”

Doc looked at the charts, then back to my data. “The deepest water is near the edge here, just over fifty feet. This area where the depth changes quickly to less than twenty feet looks promising. Great Whites love the drop-offs. Back to barrel fishing?”

“I think it’s too murky to use the cages. We’ll have to tend the barrels when they blow up into the shallows, but we can use a zodiac for that and stay in deeper waters,” I said. “The sharks will head for deep water when hooked, I’m sure of it.”

“It’s worth a try. The Great Whites found here will be feeding on fish and smaller sharks, maybe harbor seals. I don’t expect to find big ones, but we need to tag the younger ones too. They are the ones just coming into maturity,” Doc said.

“I’ll anchor here for the night,” the Captain said. “We’ll have a short transit to the fishing grounds in the morning.”

I walked back down to the galley, spreading the word about tomorrow’s plan to the excited crew. Some had been hesitant to use my “cheap” tags but now understood that quantity had a quality all its own. A few people were playing with the tagging data from the University of Miami, which combined data from the usual tags with the new ones I’d gotten into play. There was far more data than they were used to, and a wider variety of species and broader expanse of sizes than before. “This is fantastic,” Chip said as he explored Bull Shark sightings along the East Coast. The variety could tolerate brackish and even freshwater, often traveling hundreds of miles inland along rivers. “My sister would freak if she knew twelve-foot sharks are swimming the river she rows crew on,” he said. I looked at the map; sure enough, data from a bull shark well up the Merrimack River near Lowell, Massachusetts. “She’s at UMass Lowell,” he explained.

“Yeah, probably best not to say anything,” I said. I saw Dale return with one of the camera guys before he asked Chip if he was ready. “What’s going on?”

“Interviews and background,” Chip said.

“Nothing to worry about,” Dale confirmed. “Reactions to the day’s activities, questions, commentary to voice over video taken today.” I must have looked a little surprised. “They aren’t doing it with you?”

“Maybe that’s what they are using the bridge time for,” I said. Or maybe they are talking ABOUT me. With all the drama I’d caused, perhaps they were setting this up to be more reality show and less a serious documentary. I’d have to ask Erik about it tomorrow because I was tired from all the swimming. I went back to my cabin, talked to Amy and my parents for a few minutes on the phone, then went to bed.