ways. He had always needed adventure, courted danger, thrived on felt he could not survive withoutchange. And life had always provided nourishment enough.
The navy recruiter at Michigan State had recognized the need in Sharp for action and had played to it. Here was a kid who had broken both legsone skiing, one hang-glidingand yet had persisted in both sports; a certified scuba diver since the age of fourteen whose hero was not Jacques Cousteau but Peter Gimbel, the man who had made the first underwater films on great white sharks and the wreck of the Andrea Doria; a dreamer who wanted to build an ultralite airplane and fly it across the country; a restless quester whose ambition was to affirm himself not by accumulating wealth but by testing his own limits. On the navy’s psychological-profile test, he had listed three men he admired: Ernest Hemingway, Theodore Roosevelt and James Bondall “because they were doers, not observers, they lived their lives.” (Sharp noted that, like him, the navy wasn’t persnickety about making distinctions between legend and reality.)
The recruiter persuaded Marcus that the navy offered him a chance to spend his career doing what others could hope to do only on occasional vacations. He could pick his specialty, change it regularly, “stretch his envelope” on the sea and in the sky and, in the processalmost incidentallycontribute to the nation’s defense.
He signed up before graduation and, in June of 1983, he entered Officer Candidate School in Newport, Rhode Island.
The first few years met all his expectations. He became expert in underwater demolition. He qualified as a helicopter pilot. He served a stint of sea duty and actually saw combat, in Panama. When his mind caught up with his body and he developed adult interests, he spent a year studying meteorology and oceanography on an exchange tour in Halifax.
Life for Sharp was rich, varied and fun.
But in the past year and a half, variety and fun had ceased to satisfy.
Part of his problem, he knew, was an unwillingness to confront the specter of becoming a grown-up. He was twenty-nine and hadn’t given much thought to thirty, certainly hadn’t been afraid of it, until a few months before, when he had been rejected in his application to join the navy’s elite, high-risk, high-demand amphibious guerrillas, the SEALs. He was too old.
But at the core of his discontent lay the only thing close to tragedy that Marcus Sharp had ever known.
He had fallen in love with a United Airlines flight attendant, a skier and scuba diver, and they had been all over the world together. They were young and immortal. Marriage was a possibility but not a necessity. They lived in and for the present.
And then one September day in 1989, they were snorkeling off a beach in North Queensland. They had heard routine warnings about dangerous animals, but they hadn’t been worried. They had been swimming with sharks and rays and barracudas; they could take care of themselves. The sea was a world not of danger but of adventure and discovery.
They had seen a turtle swimming by, and they had followed it, trying to keep up with it. The turtle had slowed and opened its mouth, as if to eat something, though they saw nothing, and they glided up to it, entranced by its grace and efficiency in the water.
Karen had reached out to touch it, to stroke its shell, and as Sharp watched she suddenly convulsed and arched her back and clawed at her breast. Her snorkel slipped from her mouth. Her eyes went wide and she screamed, tearing at her own flesh.
Sharp grabbed her and pulled her to the surface and tried to get her to speak, but all she could do was shriek.
By the time he got her to shore, she was dead.
The turtle had been feeding on sea wasps, box jellyfish all but invisible in the water, colonies of nematocysts so toxic that a brush with them could stop a human heart. And so it had.
When Karen had been buried in Indiana and Sharp’s grief had
The navy recruiter at Michigan State had recognized the need in Sharp for action and had played to it. Here was a kid who had broken both legsone skiing, one hang-glidingand yet had persisted in both sports; a certified scuba diver since the age of fourteen whose hero was not Jacques Cousteau but Peter Gimbel, the man who had made the first underwater films on great white sharks and the wreck of the Andrea Doria; a dreamer who wanted to build an ultralite airplane and fly it across the country; a restless quester whose ambition was to affirm himself not by accumulating wealth but by testing his own limits. On the navy’s psychological-profile test, he had listed three men he admired: Ernest Hemingway, Theodore Roosevelt and James Bondall “because they were doers, not observers, they lived their lives.” (Sharp noted that, like him, the navy wasn’t persnickety about making distinctions between legend and reality.)
The recruiter persuaded Marcus that the navy offered him a chance to spend his career doing what others could hope to do only on occasional vacations. He could pick his specialty, change it regularly, “stretch his envelope” on the sea and in the sky and, in the processalmost incidentallycontribute to the nation’s defense.
He signed up before graduation and, in June of 1983, he entered Officer Candidate School in Newport, Rhode Island.
The first few years met all his expectations. He became expert in underwater demolition. He qualified as a helicopter pilot. He served a stint of sea duty and actually saw combat, in Panama. When his mind caught up with his body and he developed adult interests, he spent a year studying meteorology and oceanography on an exchange tour in Halifax.
Life for Sharp was rich, varied and fun.
But in the past year and a half, variety and fun had ceased to satisfy.
Part of his problem, he knew, was an unwillingness to confront the specter of becoming a grown-up. He was twenty-nine and hadn’t given much thought to thirty, certainly hadn’t been afraid of it, until a few months before, when he had been rejected in his application to join the navy’s elite, high-risk, high-demand amphibious guerrillas, the SEALs. He was too old.
But at the core of his discontent lay the only thing close to tragedy that Marcus Sharp had ever known.
He had fallen in love with a United Airlines flight attendant, a skier and scuba diver, and they had been all over the world together. They were young and immortal. Marriage was a possibility but not a necessity. They lived in and for the present.
And then one September day in 1989, they were snorkeling off a beach in North Queensland. They had heard routine warnings about dangerous animals, but they hadn’t been worried. They had been swimming with sharks and rays and barracudas; they could take care of themselves. The sea was a world not of danger but of adventure and discovery.
They had seen a turtle swimming by, and they had followed it, trying to keep up with it. The turtle had slowed and opened its mouth, as if to eat something, though they saw nothing, and they glided up to it, entranced by its grace and efficiency in the water.
Karen had reached out to touch it, to stroke its shell, and as Sharp watched she suddenly convulsed and arched her back and clawed at her breast. Her snorkel slipped from her mouth. Her eyes went wide and she screamed, tearing at her own flesh.
Sharp grabbed her and pulled her to the surface and tried to get her to speak, but all she could do was shriek.
By the time he got her to shore, she was dead.
The turtle had been feeding on sea wasps, box jellyfish all but invisible in the water, colonies of nematocysts so toxic that a brush with them could stop a human heart. And so it had.
When Karen had been buried in Indiana and Sharp’s grief had
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