A Shark Under the Tree

Visiting a predominantly Catholic country when you're trying to skip Christmas altogether isn't the best strategy. Unfortunately, that fact didn't hit Shelley until the resort's concierge escorted her to an ocean view room. A temporary holiday-themed sign on the door read: "Habitacion Grande del Noche de Paz." Translation: The Silent Night Suite.

Christmas music came from hidden speakers everywhere, 24/7 and from every corner of the resort: in the terracotta hallways, in the restaurant, in the spa, in the elevator, over the hold music in calls to the front desk, and even through the fake boulders around the pool. She felt defeated.

The old classic "Silver Bells" was her mother's favorite Christmas song, and Shelley was afraid that she might just have a panic attack if it popped up on the playlist. It was just too painful to celebrate the holiday on her own or with anyone other than her mom.

Christmastime was always magical and filled with love, and even though it was just the two of them, they had great fun every holiday with quirky traditions that sadly would be no more.

Although they loathed the over-commercialization of the holiday and stopped the practice of gift-giving, they couldn't resist Christmas Day movie marathons and decorating their Christmas trees in a theme with homemade ornaments. i.e., the holiday before her mom died, they had an environmental theme, so the angel at the top of the Christmas tree was a picture of activist Greta Thunberg with gossamer wings. The ornaments were paper stars and snowflakes cut out of old magazines and icicles made out of recycled glass.

For the next two years, after her mom's death, Shelley managed to avoid acknowledging Christmas completely. The first year it was a trip to a Zen spa in Palm Springs. The following year, it was a remote vacation rental in the rolling Welsh highlands. In year three, a sunny tropical island seemed like the farthest she could get away from anything resembling "SantaCon," but clearly, the Dominican Republic wasn't buying into the holiday's cancellation just for Shelley's visit.

Glad tidings and season's greetings oozed from baggage claim at the Punta Cana airport; most skycaps were wearing reindeer antlers. Her shuttle bus and the entire resort were covered in tinsel, and she discovered the resort's restaurant menu was limited to exclusively traditional holiday dishes and desserts - breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

By the time Mrs. Claus turned up in a red and white bikini to hand out free candy canes to hot tub loungers, Shelley had enough. After a few attempts, she realized she couldn't even get an earlier return flight home because they were sold out due to CHRISTMAS traffic!

To make matters worse, there was no ebb and flow to the breezes in Punta Cana; the island's palm fronds leaned all day horizontally. It was a constant blowing as if the Earth turned its fan on high. It was deafening, whipping, and wind burning her entire face. Wind speed had been growing faster across the Caribbean for the last decade, thanks to climate change. Apparently, finding paradise was not going to be in the cards on this trip, she thought.

The only way to make the best of the next six days, she decided, was a complete sensory deprivation. As much as possible, she would wear sunglasses and noise cancellation earphones and spend time in her room away from the blustering wind (or underwater, away from the rest of the festive world).

After three days of cabin fever, she booked one of the resort's sail and snorkeling excursions to a nearby cay. She figured that was the best chance to distance her from the din of jolly carolers and jingle bells back at the resort.

When she and her fellow passengers disembarked from the sailboat, she raced ahead down the beach to grab the cabana furthest from the dock. All she wanted was to read, swim, snorkel, and to be left alone.

Shelley and her mom loved snorkeling. It was always a top priority when traveling; they'd been snorkeling in Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Bermuda, Panama, Costa Rica, Jamaica, and Mexico. The awe of swimming mere feet away from gigantic sea turtles or being encircled by a cylindrical wall of Pacific blue tang fish were highs like none other.

In one instant, though, that all changed with a shark encounter in the Dominican Republic.

In the late afternoon, the excursion chaperone gave all the passengers an hour's departure warning, and Shelley thought that would be just enough time to get another quick snorkel in and dry off before heading back to the boat.

As she swam farther out, the water temperature got dramatically colder, but she was told by the guide that that's where the best reefs were to observe stingrays.

Suddenly she felt a tug at her foot and realized she was tethered by some sort of plastic cuff around her ankle, and as she dove down below the water to loosen it, she saw a 6-foot gray bull shark just a few feet underwater below her thrashing away, tangled in a massive plastic jumble.

Yards and yards of orange construction fencing, plastic packaging, bottles, and fishing line had spun together with the ocean's current to create a 10x10 foot wide floating web trapping everything in its path - including Shelley.

The entire coast of the Dominican Republic is surrounded by a coral reef, so sharks are rare sightings, so it's probable he had been tangled in the polluted mess for a few days and just drifted closer to shore while trapped.

Shelley's first instinct was to swim backward, but she became further entangled in the web as she did. Shelley realized she was actually towing the enraged shark behind her as she frantically paddled to safety but didn't dare stop or go in its direction to untangle herself. She was so far away from the boat dock that no one could hear her scream over the whipping winds anyway.

The only option was to keep swimming as fast as possible with all of her "train" in tow. As an exhausted Shelley was nearing the shore, she was able to wave down a lifeguard, and the rest of the passengers started running down the beach to see why she was in distress.

The high tide pushed her closer inland, but every time she would make headway, a riptide sent her drifting to the side. Digging their heels into the sand, the other passengers formed a human chain to pull her out as well as the entire plastic trap and everything in it - including the shark.

As both she and the shark gasped for air on land, Shelley got unhooked from the snarl, and the sailboat's captain used his Swiss army knife to cut the shark out of its plastic prison. With the next receding tide, the shark was instantly dragged back out to the sea. Finally unencumbered. Free.

Shelley was so grateful she had people around to help save her. Had she been entirely alone, she may not have survived. She held no grudge against the shark, after all, it was human actions that put it there. It was in trouble and had no clear path out without human intervention. They had a lot in common with each other. And for that matter, so did the planet.

One of the passengers in the crowd observing all the plastic trash just extracted from the water joked, "Wow! You saved Mother Earth today! You're like a mini Greta Thunberg!" They all laughed.

And just then, another passenger exclaimed, "Lady, you must have an angel watching over you!"

For a moment, it felt like Christmas used to, but this year, there was a shark under the tree.

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