MIAMI—We were beginning to run out of bait, and the sharks weren’t cooperating.
Everybody aboard the Research Vessel Garvin had come to Miami for the sharks—to catch them, sample them, and tag them, all in the name of science. People who once wanted to be marine biologists, actual marine biologists, shark enthusiasts, the man who literally wrote the book Why Sharks Matter, and various friends and family had spent much of the day sending fish heads set with hooks over the side of the Garvin. But each time the line was hauled back in, it came in slack, with nothing but half-eaten bait or an empty hook at the end.
And everyone was getting nervous.