Shaken, but unharmed

[The Bigfella]

OK, picture this... you're out fishing in your dinghy, off the coast in Dingoland, aka West Australia.

A 4.5m (15') White Pointer shark attacks the outboard motor on your boat. You grab an oar and whack the shark on the nose, but drop the oar. You lean over to grab the oar, but fall out of the boat, which drifts away. The shark comes back and starts circling you... when you are noticed by people in another boat who come and pick you up and take you to shore.

You reckon you'd buy a lottery ticket?

[rufustr]

I'd think I'd won the lottery already.

[seanz]

OK, picture this... you're out fishing in your dinghy, off the coast in Dingoland, aka West Australia.

A 4.5m (15') White Pointer shark attacks the outboard motor on your boat. You grab an oar and whack the shark on the nose, but drop the oar. You lean over to grab the oar, but fall out of the boat, which drifts away. The shark comes back and starts circling you...and you can hear it laughing.... when you are noticed by people in another boat who come and pick you up and take you to shore.

You reckon you'd buy a lottery ticket?
:D
An important scientific discovery.

[PeterSibley]

It wouldn't see me for the brown stain .:(:D

[rbgarr]

Not to worry. The shark drowned from laughing.

[Thad]

Was that you bigfella?

[hansp77]

when I heard that on the news tonight I almost had to laugh. Can you imagine how stupid the guy felt after he had fallen in, after the boat drifted away, as the shark started circling?
Dammit, I knew I should have listened to the voice that said the oar really wasn't that important, that said, YOUR LEANING OUT TOO FAR!:D

Poor bugger, really. The pure distillation of fear in my imagination.

[Lew Barrett]

Before I got to this forum, Australia seemed like such a lovely place to visit........:D

Funny, Peter! :D

[ishmael]

Hm, I don't remember ever falling out of a boat. Maybe when I was wee, in shallow water, with no sharks about I did.

Is this a real story, or did you just make it up?

[Uncle Duke]

Is this a real story, or did you just make it up?
You can, as they say, look it up:
http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/latest/5555308/angler-falls-water-trying-rid-shark/

[John B]

The motor was running , which was why the boat left Nigel no Mates behind.

Stupid. just stupid . What sort of shark attacks a running outboard... too much damn mercury in its diet I reckon.

[Wild Dingo]

aaahhh WA what a wonderous place... the darwin theory at work :D

Mind you the great whites have been having a feeding time back home over the last year or so

Beauty of their increased activity is that it keeps dopey lanky wombats like Dougy out of the waters!! :D hes terrified of going in the water if they come to visit :D :D

[The Bigfella]

Yeah - true story...

I've been told of another one that happened down at Batemans Bay a few years back, but can't confirm it. No reason to doubt it though, the source wasn't prone to bullsh!tting.

Some guys were out a fair way off the Bay shark fishing, it being a bit of a popular activity down there. They'd chummed up the water with chicken blood, etc and this bloody great Mako shark jumped out and crashed down on their boat.... sinking it. They were left swimming many miles out to sea, wondering what happened to the big Mako and just how effective their chumming was going to prove to be. They were eventually - 12 hours or so later - spotted in the water by another boat and picked up safely.

[John B]

As I witnessed at christmas this year 10 or 15 ft in front of our boat at anchor, mako like to go aerobatic. Whether its penguin snatching practise or just for fun , I have no idea.

[RFNK]

Some guys were out a fair way off the Bay shark fishing, it being a bit of a popular activity down there. They'd chummed up the water with chicken blood, etc and this bloody great Mako shark jumped out and crashed down on their boat.... sinking it. They were left swimming many miles out to sea, wondering what happened to the big Mako and just how effective their chumming was going to prove to be. They were eventually - 12 hours or so later - spotted in the water by another boat and picked up safely.


Prove this one's true and I'll eat my hat at the next Aust. Wooden Boat Festival. Rick

[The Bigfella]

Good offer, given I've already said that I can't confirm it....

[John B]

I don't see why you would doubt such a story Rick. Mako are reknowned for going for air, they get big , and people go out in little boats often without basic safety equipment with monotonous regularity. I've rescued a guy from a 12 foot tinny he flipped all by himself at anchor:rolleyes:, he was blue when we got him. His hat blew off and he tried to catch it, no shark required.
A close friend of mine had a mako follow his anchor up in his powerboat, it leapt over his head height about 3 or 4 ft in front of his face. I was dubious myself until another mate told me about witnessing it from the next boat over. Where ? crusoe rock, right in the Tamaki straight ( basically inner gulf , protected waters)
A couple of years ago a woman had her health ruined for life by a dolphin landing on her in a powerboat under way in the hauraki gulf. 150 or 200 kg can do that to you.
Why couldn't a shark make a misjudgement ... I'm sure there are smart ones and stupid ones, old ones and hormonal 'teenager' ones .....

[RFNK]

I'm not saying it couldn't happen. I'm simply saying I don't believe it did happen. If it had happened it would have been all over the Australian media like every other shark story - fact or fiction for that matter. To my knowledge this one wasn't. Stories about people getting bumped off their surfboards by sharks make headlines in Oz. People swimming to shore after capsizing their dinghy make headlines too. The guy who fell out of his boat after hitting the white pointer with an oar made headlines. But the guys who swam around for 12 hours after the big shark leapt into the air and sank their boat didn't ... funny that! Anyway, I'm skeptical and the offer stands. Rick

[The Bigfella]

Fine, the offer stands... as I said, I can't confirm it. The guy who told me said he knew one of the guys.. scared the guy sh!tless of course. I was told the story about 10 years back - and it had happened some time before that.

Ask some old fishermen down at Batemans Bay - see if they can name anyone involved.

[skuthorp]

It's a funny thing about humans, they think they're not part of the food chain and get a trifle rattled at any reminder.
Down here the seal population is booming in the bay and so are the tourist operators who take parties in hired wetsuits 'swimming with the seals, dolphins/etc". Now anyone with sense will tell you that if the food source (the seal) is increasing so are thier major predator. In fact sharks are being seen much more often in the bay these days. I spoke to one of these operators who somehow hadn't made the connection. "Sharks, they eat fish don't they".
Personally, surfing at Killarney Beach on our south coast I had a biggish shark join me on the wave and roll over so he could get a good look at dinner. I rode that wave right onto the beach and adjourned to the local pub.

[The Bigfella]

Yeah, they don't impress me that much. I've been closer than I want to them whilst in the water on too many occasions. The first was when we were kids.. on a surfboard at Coffs Harbour. Dad had driven me down to the beach with the surfboard and was sitting in the car. He saw it, I didn't. He just got out of the car and waved me up - didn't tell me till we left the beach.

[paladin]

I swam with the dolphins off the Twin Pitons on Sta. Lucia. I had just came aboard the boat after looking for lunch and had tossed the speargun etc on board when the dolphin swam by.....I had maybe 20 minutes of air left in the tank so I dropped back into the water. I swam up close.....they were in a pod with males forward, aft and on top and bottom like road guards, females inside them, and the pups inside the femals in the middle.....they were not agressive. A pup broke the formation and swam over to me and I held out my hand...it wasn't afraid....and about that time a big male dived between us, pushing the youngster back, and got right in front of my mask, about 12 inches away, and let me know in a heartbeat that I needed to keep my distance...I managed to keep pace with them for a few minutes, but as long as I stayed a respectable distance and wasn't aggressive we had no problems.

[RFNK]

Down here the seal population is booming in the bay and so are the tourist operators who take parties in hired wetsuits 'swimming with the seals, dolphins/etc".


Jeff, I wonder if this is seasonal? In SA, Jervis Bay and other places in Oz where people regularly dive with seals, the dive operators won't take divers during the mating season - as the male seals become very aggressive, or the birthing season - when sharks come in to prey on baby seals. Rick

[Tumzara]

[quote=skuthorp;2191477]Down here the seal population is booming in the bay and so are the tourist operators who take parties in hired wetsuits 'swimming with the seals, dolphins/etc". Now anyone with sense will tell you that if the food source (the seal) is increasing so are thier major predator. In fact sharks are being seen much more often in the bay these days. I spoke to one of these operators who somehow hadn't made the connection. "Sharks, they eat fish don't they".

He's probably working on the "I don't have to swim faster than the shark, just faster than the slowest tourist should be enough" principle.

[John B]

a couple of christmas shark stories

http://media.nzherald.co.nz/webcontent/image/jpg/mako2.jpg

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10551251

and

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10553566

and the guys in the inflatable..

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10486873