The Shark Lady, Gloria Patience

The Shark Lady

Once upon a time on an island of silver palms and golden sands there lived a woman fondly referred to as The Shark Lady of the Ferry, Little Exuma!

The Misses Gloria Patience is legendary, known throughout the Caribbean as the woman who would free dive and wrestle sharks to their death with her bare hands! Gloria was born in 1917, living a conventional life, marrying and raising 9 children. Between you and I, bearing and raising 9 kids makes shark fishing look like a walk on the beach!

In the 1970s, Gloria’s husband died. The free thinker snubbed the idea to remarry and reinvented herself. From under piles of diapers and stacks of bills, The Shark Lady was born!

I like to think that it is no coincidence that another famous Gloria, Gloria Steinem, was leading the woman’s movement at the very time our shark lady abandoned her kitchen to become the only woman fisher-person in the Caribbean. Her all-female crew of young women distracted many a sailor. Not only did they burn their bras, but they threw away their shirts as well, fishing topless throughout the Exuma cays and living happily ever after.