Misc. Article

We were invited, and attendended the Shark Week 20th Anniversary Celebration in New York City on July 18th.  It was supposed to be a sneak peek of the upcoming shark week on the Discovery Channel.  This was my first time to N.Y...

It seemed to take FOREVER to catch a cab to get to the Shark Week Event - finally a Town Car stopped and took us over.  As it turns out there was an explosion a few blocks away just a few minutes before we tried getting a cab (turned out to be a steam pipe) and so everything was crazy.

When we finally got to Chelsea Piers (the venue), it was nice.  We didn't know what to expect, but there was an open bar with baby black tipped sharks swimming in a tank at the center of the bar.  Many waiters running around with snacks and 'Shark' martinis - a blue drink with a gummy-shark garnish.

There were many T.V.'s showing footage of previous years' shark weeks.  In the main theater, there was a large screen with about 500 chairs set up to watch the sneek peek.

The invite promised shark attack survivors and shark experts - and knowing that the tiger shark was being featured this year, we thought we might see Bethany Hamilton (the young surfer who lost her arm to a tiger shark) and Manny "the sharkman" Puig.  They weren't there, but some 'celebs' were there for photo ops - Mike Rowe, Jeff Corwin, and my wife's favorite, Doug Wilson (from trading spaces). 

The shark attack survivors were a couple of WWII veterans that were on the USS Indianapolis when it sank during the war.  Of 900 men who survived the sinking of the ship, only 300 survived in the largest shark attack in history.  The Discovery Channel chronicles this attack in "Ocean of Fear" to kick off the 20th Anniversary Shark Week.  We saw the first hour, and it looks pretty good - so we will be watching.  We were hoping to get to see snippets of other shark week shows, but this was the only thing presented.

After the movie, we had our photo taken, grabbed some shark-snacks and headed out.  We received a schwag-bag with a t-shirt, bottle of shark wine, some shark gummy candy, a 4 disc DVD set, and a shark tote to carry it all.

Shark Week kicks off with "Ocean of Fear" on July 29th.

Below you can see some of the photos taken of some of the cool shark stuff around the venue.