Shark attacks

I used to go snorkelling looking for sharks. I found two Nurse sharks in the USVIs and one Reef shark in Tobago Cays, it was swimming towards me but turned I went to follow it but it was too fast. In Malaysia we were swimming of a boat and I'd gone back to the boat when the other swimmers rushed back saying they had seen a shark, I dived in but couldn't find it. As a rule of thumb sharks around reefs are usually harmless because there are plenty of fish to eat, the killers are the hungry ocean sharks. Over the Atlantic we only saw one shark about 100 miles off the Cape Verdes. More exciting though is we have also seen a few whales in the Caribbean and one followed close behind us in the Canaries.
 
NOT an attack, but for all those mentioning sharks off SW UK.

It was about 1987, I was with a chum, on a hol around the Channel Isles & West Country in my Carter 30; it was flat calm, we were motoring a few miles offshore of Plymouth heading East.

We'd already seen several pods ( whatever ) of basking sharks plodding along behaving much like cows.

Then I saw a big fin in the distance towards Salcombe, so we motored over to have a look; even from a distance one could see it was different to the basking jobs.

The fin was big, I hesitate to give dimensions as it's a while ago; and the thing was moving slowly but purposefully.

As we closed it was obviously a real, stroppy toothy type shark; the thing was, it came to us, diving a couple of feet underwater; it came parallel alongside, eyeing us up.

What I do remember clearly is that it was more than half the length of our 30' boat, this is definite, we both still talk about it today.

I remember it seemed to have a striped / mottled appearance, but thought at the time that could have been the sun on the clear water.

I called to my chum on the bow to hold on tight in case it knudged / rammed us, as going over the side held little appeal right then, it was definitely interested in us, I wondered if it had been bothered by fishermen before and recognised the sound of our diesel.

Despite being a pro photographer I didn't get a camera, I was too busy helming, and gradually peeled us away from it, I didn't want the prop & skeg, rudder going too near for both it and our sakes.

That's it, we carried on East and big fish glided Westwards.

No idea what type of shark it was, except ****ing big !
 
Crossing from Las Palmas to Martinique a few years ago, I'd eaten the usual 'Ready Brek' type porridge in the cockpit (straight from the saucepan..single handed so I don't get shouted at ...;) ) Something cropped up and I left the almost empty saucepan in the sun only to find an hour later that the inside was now coated by a concrete like mixture.

Ha! no problem he thinks..saucepan bent onto 10 metres of small line and dropped over the stern..natural dishwasher. No excuses..I should have known better. I noticed a short while later the line was not as taught as it had been. Hauled the line in and found just the saucepan handle, the end jagged and scored. Obviously whatever it was didn't quite get the whole saucepan into it's mouth...:p

PS TEFAL saucepans may be stainless steel, they may be non stick but they 'aint shark proof...;)
 
beany_bot said:
Im sorry but you are wrong. If you take 100 sharks, and 100 dogs. You are more likely to get bitten by one of the dogs than one of the sharks.
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Only if you don't enter the water.

A mate from Oz, had a job in the Med, on a French catamaran, which took daytrippers out snorkelling.
They used to lower a pair of hefty loudspeakers over the side & play soothing music for the clients swimming.
One day, he switched the tape & played the music from Jaws.
The results were quite remarkable apparently! ;)
 
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I spend a lot of time snorkeling in warmer waters than the UK and shark sightings are pretty rare. maybe 25 in 11 years mostly in the Bahamas..

But there are times and places where I am cautious. If spearfishing I get the fish out of the water and into the dinghy ASAP as the struggling fish will attract sharks.

However in the Bahamas and Turks and Caicos there are dive operators who have been hand feeding sharks for years. Sharks in those areas now associate swimmers with food. Possibly worse if you are wearing a wet suit. I have had sharks appear within one minute of entering the water in the Bahamas.

But the most likely way to get a sharkbite is to wade in shallow water in Florida. At some times huge numbers of small sharks migrate around the coast and they inflict cookie cutter bites on the legs of people paddling in the surf.
 
Sharks are a bit of a sore point with my wife and family as her uncle was killed by one as a young man. He was a merchant seaman and jumped in to save one of his crewmates that was trying to commit suicide. The saddest part is that he ended up being attacked and killed by the shark while the jumper survived. The family have some old press cuttings from the time and some sort of bravery award was given to the family but talk of sharks even now (nearly 40 years later) is a no-no and Jaws would never be watched if on TV.
 
Whilst I generally share the view that sharks are harmless there is sufficient evidence of peeps being attacked and killed that it is a threat to be taken seriuosly in some waters. One I have in mind is an anchorage we spent five days in in Tarafal in The Cape Verdes, it was a 10m deep inlet off the ocean. We used to swim ashore most days, there was a half decent restaurant (well shack kept by couple of rather good Italian cooks) at the end of the inlet.

We suffered no problems unlike the German woman crew member who was attacked and killed by a shark (believed to be a great white) 5 years later whilst swimming ashore.....

See this link http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/sharks/statistics/GAttack/mapafric.htm

My take on swimming in the tropics is if the water is clear and not too deep then fine, if either of these are wrong then there's a risk.
 
Georgio said:
Sharks are a bit of a sore point with my wife and family as her uncle was killed by one as a young man. He was a merchant seaman and jumped in to save one of his crewmates that was trying to commit suicide. The saddest part is that he ended up being attacked and killed by the shark while the jumper survived. The family have some old press cuttings from the time and some sort of bravery award was given to the family but talk of sharks even now (nearly 40 years later) is a no-no and Jaws would never be watched if on TV.
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Blimey that's not good :-(
 
Downsman said:
Crossing from Las Palmas to Martinique a few years ago, I'd eaten the usual 'Ready Brek' type porridge in the cockpit (straight from the saucepan..single handed so I don't get shouted at ...;) ) Something cropped up and I left the almost empty saucepan in the sun only to find an hour later that the inside was now coated by a concrete like mixture.

Ha! no problem he thinks..saucepan bent onto 10 metres of small line and dropped over the stern..natural dishwasher. No excuses..I should have known better. I noticed a short while later the line was not as taught as it had been. Hauled the line in and found just the saucepan handle, the end jagged and scored. Obviously whatever it was didn't quite get the whole saucepan into it's mouth...:p

PS TEFAL saucepans may be stainless steel, they may be non stick but they 'aint shark proof...;)
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Picture the scene. Shark gets caught in a beach net. Is landed and gutted, as they often are by shark agencies. Out tumbles the pan of a tefal frying pan possibly with remnants of concreted porridge.

The speculation around the examination table would be hilarious!
 
That's the most intelligent counter argument you can come up with, is it ?

That was from a book specifically about shark attacks on humans which a chum had and I skimmed through in the late 1970's, as the author could manage more than one syllable I'll tend to believe him...
 
I seem to remember Mr Roy Scheider asking "...is it true most sharks attack in three feet of water?", and Mr Dreyfuss replying "Yeah."

In spite of the big rubbery monster and some terrible boat-ignorant scripting, it's still one of my favourite films.

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I had a schoolteacher with an expression like that.
 
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