The Legend of the Shark Tooth

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The Legend of the Sharks Tooth

Or how to be a little superstitous as a diver

I remember a friend handing me a small sharks tooth about 25 years ago, and telling me a story about how I should keep it on me at all times when I was diving.....

Well, I think I know where that tooth is, but would not care to wager on it's being there.... That garage of mine can hide a lot of stuff....

But I have kept a tooth on for every dive I have ever made since then. I looked back on a few old pictures and there it was, one or another, and I was getting about a new tooth every year there for a while, but have a nice Mako Shark Tooth now. They have been big and small, some fossils, some new, but always there.

I was foggy on the whole tale of the tooth, even though it had been told to me that day I got my first one, until recently when a friend dug up the tale for me someplace.

The tale starts in the South Pacific. Back in the days of the forming of the seas, and when the rains were pouring from the heavens to create our seas, the God of the Seas, called Ohav-Lai was challenged for supremacy of the seas by the man eating shark.

Well, legends tell how the battle raged on for a day in the depths of the Pacific.

Eventually Ohav-Lai came forth from the seas, with a large tooth from the shark around his neck.

So now, as the legends say, and the South Pacific natives beleive, the tooth of the man-eating shark brings long and prosperous life, free from harm, particularly that from the sea. I am told that the divers in the seas there will not enter the water without a tooth.

Anyways, that is the legend, and I just pass it along, so next time I am asked why I always have mine on, especially for a dive, I can probably remember the story a bit better......