Monday 3 February 2014

Shark!

On Saturday morning, a close friend who has been a fisherman all his life was anchored in False Bay, catching linefish with another friend who was teaching his 9-year-old son to fish. There were five other crew members on the boat - an old traditional wooden Kalk Bay fishing boat of maybe 5m in length.

They were catching mackerel and an assortment of other fish, all standing or sitting on the gunwales, when a 4 metre great white shark launched itself from the deep sea, its mouth gaping wide and rows of deadly teeth exposed, straight onto the boat. Its trajectory indicated that it was after the small boy, whose father instinctively literally snatched him from the jaws of death, flinging himself and his son backwards into the laaitjies (fishing boxes) and smashing the wooden partitions to smithereens.

Our friend, Peter, who was at the back of the boat behind the cabin, recalls that, apart from the shock of the suddenness of the attack, the sight of the teeth and the size of the shark, the most vivid recollection of the entire 10-second event was the revolting smell that came from the shark - something that he says he will never forget. At the time, his only concern was to get out of the way of the shark, which had struck the side of the little cabin, nose first, and was now sliding off the boat and back into the water. His only refuge was the cabin and he threw himself onto the floor as tons of shark passed overhead.

The whole incident was over before anyone could give a warning. They picked themselves up and not a word was said. The rest of the crew were bug-eyed and when everyone could talk again, it was a case of let's just get the hell out of here! Which they did.

Being fishermen, after travelling a few kilometres, they stopped again to throw out a line, a ironically hooked a small shark of another species. As it was being hauled in, another great white sped up behind it and took the whole thing before their very eyes. That was fishing over for the day!

He has been fishing in the bay for more than 40 years and has never experienced anything like it. I'm not sure how the little boy is feeling - probably quite traumatised, but one thing is for sure: when they ask him at school what he did on the weekend, he will be the star of the class and be able to dine out on his story for the rest of his life!

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