Most of us have sharks in the back of our minds whenever we swim in
salt water but as attacks are rare we ignore it unless we actually see
sharks. I have often seen sharks in the water after I have gotten
out. The best I can suggest is to not swim if you see em and not to
swim after dark or dusk when they supposedly feed most. Do not swim
near bloody bait either.
Fear of gators is very similar to fear of sharks. The dang lizards
are just too common being in every puddle in these parts. When I was
a kid they were much more rare and we would not hesitate in any body
of water but these days their population has exploded and I would not
go near some bodies of water I used to swim in. Some places are just
too "gatorish". You do not swim near the edges of lakes with thick
weeds and look out for gators and gator signs. You know they are
there but you gotta figure they are scared. If you go out on the
water at night and use a light, you can see their eyes glowing red and
you'll be amazed how many there are. My brother could "grunt up
gators" meaning he could make a noise deep in his throat to call them.
Snakes oughta be more worrisome than gators or sharks cuz there's so
many of em. Every palmetto thicket probably has at least one
rattlesnake but as long as you dont walk through the palmettos, you
seem almost safe. Its the Cottonmouth Moccasins that scare me the
most. Ugly, evil looking and aggressive, they'll fight you for a fish
you catch and they are all over the place. My neighbor has em in his
yard and they crawl into his garage from the creek behind his house.
All the trompin in the woods near bodies of water we do nobody in my
family has been bitten but our dog got bit on her face. She swelled
up like a balloon and died within 15 minutes. My earliest remembered
boating experience (I was 4) was in a canoe with my mother behind me.
A Moccasin charged the boat and tried to climb in and she swung that
paddle like an axe decapitating the snake right beside me, sorta made
an impression.
Sting rays are not normally fatal when they hit you but seriously
painful and likely to get infected. My brother in law got hit on his
ankle and we had to haul him 20 miles to the hospital to get the barb
pulled out. People always say "Shuffle your feet" when you walk in
shallow bay water to scare em off and maybe that works. When we were
kids, we walked barefoot all over the bays and never got hit but as an
adult I wear "water shoes" as a half assed safety measure but I doubt
thye'd help. Mostly, I just try to avoid em and swim as much as I can
instead of walking.
I figure that if you dwell on these things you'll never ahve fun but
you should take a few precautions.