Do Sharks Attack Us?

[Sup44]

Pono,

You mentioned you've seen 10 whites along with numerous other sharks. How have you had so much contact? Are you a sailor as well?

[spookini]

Interesting how variable the stories are.

A few of us on the 'Zone live in the Plymouth area where that incident occurred.  I know ppl who know the two girls, and said yeah, they paddled out to have a look-see.  Don't know if it's true or not.

[robon]

Interesting how variable the stories are.

A few of us on the 'Zone live in the Plymouth area where that incident occurred.  I know ppl who know the two girls, and said yeah, they paddled out to have a look-see.  Don't know if it's true or not.

Wow, maybe my ditzy narrative of those two not being "that stupid" is wrong? Especially if they knew a big shark had been feeding earlier, which didn't seem like the case. That would put the likelihood of getting attacked up a lot higher obviously.

[stoneaxe]

I didn't hear that they had witnessed it, only that they had heard it happened. If there was still blood in the water they were foolish....otherwise...not so much.

[TallDude]

My cousin who lived with us growing up, was bit by a shark surfing in Mexico in the 70's. My mom had to re-dress the wound every other night. It looked like foam filling in a big piece of missing muscle.  It took a good part of the flesh off his hand. He has nerve damage and partial mobility now, but it kind of grew back. This was right around the time JAWS came out.
I play the old 'what are the chances' game in my head. My cousin lived with us, like another older brother. Two people from the same household, getting bit by a shark? I mean come on....

I got no worries 

[Sup44]

My cousin who lived with us growing up, was bit by a shark surfing in Mexico in the 70's. My mom had to re-dress the wound every other night. It looked like foam filling in a big piece of missing muscle.  It took a good part of the flesh off his hand. He has nerve damage and partial mobility now, but it kind of grew back. This was right around the time JAWS came out.
I play the old 'what are the chances' game in my head. My cousin lived with us, like another older brother. Two people from the same household, getting bit by a shark? I mean come on....

I got no worries 

What part of mexico? What kind of shark?

[PonoBill]

Pono,

You mentioned you've seen 10 whites along with numerous other sharks. How have you had so much contact? Are you a sailor as well?

I'm a Rescue Diver, with a lifelong interest in sharks. I don't dive much anymore, but I'd guess I have more than a thousand dives, logged and unlogged. Most of them in places where you might find sharks, some in places where you're gonna see sharks, and a few in places that you're absolutely certain to see sharks--like Molokini Crater, at night, after illegal chumming was done.

Most of the Tigers I've seen were from above, on a SUP. All of the whites were during dives. I also saw about 40 Hammerheads. All at one time, on a deep wall dive on the backside of Molokini. They cruised in over us, hanging out at about 40 feet while we were at 100. Good opportunity to practice conserving air. I wasn't in a hurry to go up through them.

[blueplanetsurf]

As others have mentioned, the odds of getting killed by a shark are very low. 
From: https://www.visitsealife.com/london/explore-our-creatures/sharkfactsandfigures/

Wasps kill more people than sharks causing 100 deaths every year, versus less than 20 fatalities from shark attacks. Falling coconuts are even more deadly, claiming 150 lives annually.

Toasters, chairs and domestic dogs all kill far more people every year than sharks. (Toasters and chairs each kill around 600 – 700 people a year. Dogs – kill approx 50 people a year in the US alone.)

You are 1,000 more likely to drown at sea than to be bitten by a shark.

[TallDude]

My cousin who lived with us growing up, was bit by a shark surfing in Mexico in the 70's. My mom had to re-dress the wound every other night. It looked like foam filling in a big piece of missing muscle.  It took a good part of the flesh off his hand. He has nerve damage and partial mobility now, but it kind of grew back. This was right around the time JAWS came out.
I play the old 'what are the chances' game in my head. My cousin lived with us, like another older brother. Two people from the same household, getting bit by a shark? I mean come on....

I got no worries 

What part of mexico? What kind of shark?

My brother and cousin were renting a house in San Blas. They took a ferry to the Isla Maria Madre and it happened when they were surfing there. My cousin didn't know exactly what kind of shark it was, but the locals said that Tiger sharks are the most common and aggressive in those waters. The water there was near 90 deg. 

[eastbound]

great for sound bites, but these stats mean little.

the sum of hours per year humans spend in waters where shark attacks can happen is nil compared to the number of annual human exposure hours to wasps, chairs, cars, toasters etc.

and i am not shark-obsessed or even particularly concerned, but comparison of nominal death by chairs vs sharks is not apples/apples.

[eastbound]

seen sharks diving too--plenty of nurses, but also many black tip reef sharks--once got very frightened when a number got close to us on a night dive

gained respect for the danger of tigers from a dive guide at glover's reef, belize, who in his prior 30 year incarnation had been a free dive fisherman, literally a part of the carib eco system--he described tigers as extremely dangerous, said he'd lost several friends to tigers, and said he gets out of the water immediately if he sees a tiger. and he was oblivious to 8 foot black tips, huge morays and other known-to-be-dangerous critters we saw lots of

glovers reef atoll is surrounded by walls which descend 1000's of feet--eery to be poking around on the wall at 80-90 feet and look out into the dark blue to see several big sharks pull into view and scope you-

[TallDude]

I'm more worried about getting on the freeway than anything else.

[Sup44]

Pono,

You mentioned you've seen 10 whites along with numerous other sharks. How have you had so much contact? Are you a sailor as well?

I'm a Rescue Diver, with a lifelong interest in sharks. I don't dive much anymore, but I'd guess I have more than a thousand dives, logged and unlogged. Most of them in places where you might find sharks, some in places where you're gonna see sharks, and a few in places that you're absolutely certain to see sharks--like Molokini Crater, at night, after illegal chumming was done.

Most of the Tigers I've seen were from above, on a SUP. All of the whites were during dives. I also saw about 40 Hammerheads. All at one time, on a deep wall dive on the backside of Molokini. They cruised in over us, hanging out at about 40 feet while we were at 100. Good opportunity to practice conserving air. I wasn't in a hurry to go up through them.

Care to share the story about the Molokini Crater? Sounds exciting...

[PonoBill]

Not all that exciting except I used up my good will with one of the dive companies. They had more moderately-experienced divers than they felt comfortable escorting with two divemasters so they offered me a free trip in return for shepherding three divers. We'd reached depth about ten minutes in when the Hammerheads showed up. They were just hanging around above us. I've never heard of schools of hammerheads, but that's what it was. Big and mid-sized, I'd guess six to twelve feet. Looked a lot like this, from the same general viewpoint:



I collected my charges, got them to calm down, and focus on relaxing. I didn't want them sucking their tanks dry. The two divemasters were hanging out together, barely watching their folks, pointing out the bigger hammerheads to each other. One of their divers looked like a bubble machine. He was staring up at the sharks and blowing air everywhere. The divemasters finally went around checking air gauges and found this guy at 400 pounds at 90 feet with sharks overhead. Not good. My folks were about 1500, I was over 2K. They gestured me over, pointed at the guys gauge, pointed at me and pointed up. They wanted me to take the guy up through the sharks. I refused and went back to my charges. One of them took the guy up, he continued to blow air like crazy and the divemaster had to give him his spare regulator at the safety stop. The sharks moved off as they were ascending. I think the bubble machine scared them off.

Needless to say they were very unhappy with me. My last dive with them.

[Ichabod Spoonbill]

Pretty amazing story. I'd love to see those hammerheads sometime.

I'm not terribly scared of sharks. I actually think it's cool to see one, although that's only happened a couple of times on my standup board. Of course that comes with a lot of respect. Any carnivore deserves respect.


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