I love the ocean which is ironic as I live on a Great Lake more than 1,500 kilometers from the Atlantic. But you put me anywhere near an ocean and I guarantee it – I am jumping in. It doesn’t matter if the water is 15 degrees, I have to go for a dip.
Not having grown up with all the ocean-life, I try to rationalize my slight fear of sharks by convincing myself that my apprehension is like many other people’s fear of bears. Having spent many weekends at a cottage in the Canadian wilderness, I probably have an overly casual attitude towards bears. To me, they are just big raccoons. Yeah, a hungry grizzly deserves your complete and total respect, but most black bears want absolutely nothing to do with humans. After seeing dozens upon dozens in the wild, you realize they are not so scary. And this logic is what I use when thinking about sharks. Most of them want nothing to do with you.
However, I recently stumbled upon this research group that tracks different sharks, but specializes in Great Whites.
It’s called OCEARCH, and if you ever want to go swimming in the ocean again, then I suggest you steer clear of their site. These scientists capture Great White sharks and then track them in real time when they pop to the surface.
For example, here is a map of the sharks currently swimming off the U.S. coast.
Most of those blips on the map are “little” five-footers, but that one off the coast of Natucket is a twelve-footer.
And I used to believe the big scary Great Whites were only in deep water off the coast of Australia or South Africa, but OCEARCH has taught me that some of the biggest ones enjoy cruising right off the Canadian coast.
For example, look at the OCEARCH tracking map for Nova Scotia.
What does any of this have to do with trading? Well, although I don’t mind swimming around sharks that weigh 200 or 300 pounds, Luna-the-shark weighs over 2,100 pounds. I figure that to her, I look like the perfect size snack.
