AI Summary
5 min readOn August 10, 1981, 21-year-old Tammy Ennis was swimming backstroke six miles off the coast of Volusia County, Florida, when she felt a bump on her leg. She looked down and saw a shark swimming sideways beside her, nudging her thigh. She had already been swimming for hours. She had watched a friend get pulled underwater by a shark. She was sunburned, dehydrated, and alone. Yet she turned her gaze back to the sky and kept swimming, telling herself she belonged in the ocean like a fish.
A Blind Date That Went to Sea
The day before, Tammy had overslept and missed her usual Sunday softball game. When her old neighbor Randy called to invite her on a blind date sailboat trip with a friend from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, she agreed. She met Randy, his girlfriend Christy, and the boat’s owner, Daniel, on the beach. The four of them set out on a lightweight 17-foot catamaran—two pontoons connected by a mesh trampoline, with a 20-foot mast. They had no life jackets. Nobody thought they needed any, since they weren’t planning to go far.
About a mile offshore, they noticed one pontoon sitting low in the water. A screw cap covering a six-inch plug hole had come loose, letting water inside. Daniel sailed them back to shore, and they patched the cap with duct tape. “Back in the day, duct tape fixes everything,” Tammy recalled. They went back out.
The Boat Sinks, Twice
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What you'll learn
- 1 (01:03) **Setup: A Perfect Florida Morning Turns Into a Blind Date Sailboat Trip** - The episode opens by establishing the beauty and danger of Florida's Atlantic coast, the shark-bite capital of the world, before introducing 21-year-old Tammy Ennis.
- 2 (13:45) **First Warning Sign: The Pontoon Springs a Leak** - The carefree day is interrupted when the catamaran starts to sink due to a loose plug hole, forcing an early return to shore for a makeshift repair.
- 3 (17:20) **The Storm Hits and the Boat Capsizes** - A sudden, violent storm rolls in, causing the catamaran to flip over twice, leaving the foursome stranded on a sinking hull.
- 4 (22:08) **Nightfall and a False Rescue** - As darkness falls, the group drifts further out to sea, and a devastating encounter with a Coast Guard cutter dashes their hopes of a quick rescue.
- 5 (28:55) **The Decision to Swim** - With the pontoon nearly submerged and the shorelights gone, the group is forced to abandon the boat and swim for land as dawn breaks.
- 6 (33:18) **The Shark Attack** - During the swim, Tammy witnesses a shark attack Christy, who is pulled under, forcing Tammy to make the grim decision to swim on alone.
- 7 (35:15) **Tammy's Own Close Encounter** - Within minutes of Christy's attack, a shark bumps Tammy's leg, but she manages to stay calm and avoid provoking a bite.
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Show Notes
It’s August 1981. On a lazy Sunday, an impromptu sailboat trip around the coastal waters of Volusia County, Florida seems the perfect way to enjoy the sunshine. But then things start to unravel. One small setback becomes a series of disasters, leaving Tami Ennis and her friends stranded miles offshore, clinging to the underside of their sinking boat. Now they face a momentous choice. Stay where they are and risk drifting further out to sea? Or swim for land, through a stretch of water known as the shark bite capital of the world…
A Noiser podcast production. Hosted by John Hopkins.
Written by Joe Viner | Produced by Ed Baranski | Assistant Producer: Luke Lonergan | Exec produced by Joel Duddell | Sound Supervisor: Matt Peaty | Sound design by Jacob Booth | Assembly edit by Rob Plummer, Dorry Macaulay | Compositions by Oliver Baines, Dorry Macaulay, Tom Pink | Mix & mastering: Ralph Tittley.
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