Archive for the 'Close Calls' Category
Friday, October 2nd, 2009
Bernard Sumner had a scare on a recent sailing trip with his family in Scotland. The former New Order singer was taking a yacht out to the island of Barra when his boat suddenly had a collision with 30 foot shark.
“The boat nearly sank and there was a big imprint of a huge shark in the paint on its bottom. There was this God-almighty crash, like I’d hit rocks. I checked the charts and there were no rocks, so I called the coastguard and he said other boats that had been up there that morning had reported six large sharks in that part of the sea. My family were in bed, so I was pulling the floorboards up every 10 minutes to see if we’d taken on water,” said Sumner.
Coincidentally, Sumner’s got a new album coming out next week.
[source]
Tuesday, August 25th, 2009
Two teenagers in Australia were stranded at the weekend when a shark they had caught threw the keys of their boat overboard.
The pair were fishing on Sunday off Killcare when they landed the 4ft gummy shark.
The shark started thrashing around in the boat and apparently got itself tangled with the cord hanging from the boat keys.
The teens jumped on the shark but failed to subdue it in time. When they finally had the shark under control, they the boat keys were gone, leaving them stranded.
The pair were rescued after four hours when a passing boat saw their emergency flare.
[source]
Thursday, August 20th, 2009
Dylan Winter Crawford was surfing off Kawa’a on August 6 when he had a close call with a giant tiger shark. While waiting for a wave, Crawford was tossed off his board by a 12′ shark.
He managed to make it back to shore unscathed but his board wasn’t so lucky… the shark had taken a pretty nice chunk out of it.
[read the full story]
Wednesday, August 19th, 2009
A great white shark may have been responsible for knocking a bodyboarder off his board just off Alkantstrand beach in South Africa on Tuesday.
Jeandre Nagel felt an extremely hard knock and was thrown off his board while paddling back towards the shore around lunchtime. He grabbed the leash, got back onto the board and paddled as fast as he could until he reached the beach. Jeandre’s board had a row of deep tooth marks on the underside.
The board was handed over to the Sharks Board Offices in Richards Bay on Friday morning, from where it will be sent to Durban for examination to determine the species and size of the shark involved.
[source]
Monday, August 10th, 2009
After a day of fishing, a group of boaters were horrified when a shark jumped into their boat.
Michael Powers and his friends were on-board a 21-foot boat Saturday, when a shark decided to pay them an unannounced visit. The 5-foot bull shark was in mid-air, then landed in the boat and went crazy, flopping around breaking stuff for about 30 minutes before it calmed down.
The boat suffered very minor damage. No one was injured.
[source]
Wednesday, August 5th, 2009
A shark chased a surfer in shallow waters at Australia’s Bells Beach today, sending people scrambling for the shore.
About 20 minutes after the sighting, surfers were back in the water. Surf or die…
[source]
Saturday, May 9th, 2009
A fisherman came face-to-face with a massive great white shark after he fell off his dinghy Saturday morning. Yikes!
The man fell overboard when he tried to shoo away a 15 ft shark that was ramming his tiny aluminium fishing boat. He was hitting the shark on the nose with his oar but the shark grabbed it. The man tried to retrieve the oar and fell in. But it gets worse… the boat was still in gear so it took off, leaving the man stranded in the middle of the ocean!
The shark circled him four or five times, but eventually he was able to start swimming 2 miles back to shore. A fisherman rescued him 30 minutes later. Phew!
[source]
Wednesday, April 15th, 2009
A 6 to 9 ft bull shark attacked a dude’s jet ski while he was cruising around Fingal Bay on Sunday morning.
Heath Milne was minding his own business when the shark’s head and jaws emerged from the water and tore into the ski near where he was sitting, catapulting him into the water. Milne grabbed his paddle and scrambled back onto the now-damaged ski and made it to safety… all limbs intact.
[source]
Monday, March 23rd, 2009
Deadly packs of hungry sharks in a furious feeding frenzy could be headed to Gold Coast beaches.
Photos taken just down the coast at the weekend off Tyagarah, a secluded section of beach between Brunswick heads and Byron Bay on the NSW north coast, show a massive school of bait fish being chased by sharks while a pair of swimmers were just a few feet away.
Fishing expert Paul Burt warns it is only a matter of time before other schools of bait fish arrive on the Gold Coast and when they do, you won’t want to be anywhere near the water as there will be more sharks than ever.
[source + video]
Friday, March 20th, 2009
This pic was snapped at Praa sands, Penzance close to where there have been several reports of large killer sharks in Cornish waters.
The photos were taken by surfer Dan Harding last weekend. Harding noticed the big black shapes in the water and managed to get get a few shots right before the surfer fell off his board.
No man-munching ensued, so I guess the sharks weren’t that hungry.
[source]
