Get out of the water

I use to watch the discovery channel all the time. As a kid my favorite week was shark week because the discovery channel was all about sharks 24/7. They were my favorite animal and i loved learning about them.
In about ninth grade though i was in florida at the beach and was about to swim out to the sandbar to look for sand dollars. It was a very sunny day and I noticed they had the double red flags flying, meaning dangerous water. They never fly double red flags except during hurricane season so i figured it must be a mistake. I went in my with little brother, sister, and our friends. We swam about 30 yards out to the first sandbar no problem and started finding sand dollars as usual.
About 30 minutes later A beach police truck pulled right up to the water and started waving his arms. I heard "Everyone out of the water, SHARK!". Needless to say i started swimming for shore as fast as i could and was trying to throw my siblings forward as i swam. That was the longest swim of my life. When we reached shore, in between gasp of air, the police man told us how 2 miles down the beach a girl had been attacked and killed by a bull shark out at the second sandbar. I felt very lucky that i hadnt been two miles down the beach earlier that day.
We left to go home the very next morning but the scariest part of the experience was what we heard happened the day we left. Some family friends who were staying an extra day saw some bull sharks swim by the exact same spot on the sandbar we had been the day before.
Now whenever i watch shark week i think less about how cool the sharks are and how bad it would be to meet one up close and personal. I have yet to ever go back out to a sandbar while at the beach since that day.