Great
white shark, Carcharodon carcharias: Family LAMNIDAE
24th October 1995
A GREAT WHITE SHARK
NEARLY TOOK MY HEAD OFF...
...not that I was using it at the time!!
Located on Tasmania’s east coast is a tiny holiday town called Coles
Bay with a population of less than two hundred. This was our
departure port for a scuba dive to photograph seals at a colony on Isle
de Phouc island. On a good sea it takes a little over an hour to reach
the seals which normally number anywhere between one and three hundred.
This day we were lucky to find about twenty on the rocks and less than
half that in the water.
Prior to reaching the colony we came across a dead seal floating on the
surface. It had been dead for some time as it was bloated and
very aromatic. It had no head and no tail flippers. All the signs were
there. We just didn’t read them.
Of the four divers I was the last in the water. The water was a murky
five metres visibility and dark due to a kelp covered bottom. I
wanted to catch up to the other divers so the few seals in the water
would not have to divide their attention between separate individuals.
I found Gary and David in about thirteen metres of water and settled on
the bottom in front of Gary. David had his back to the both of us.
At that moment Gary started waving his arms frantically and yelling to
gain my attention. Believing he was trying to tell me the seals were
behind me I casually turned around to see what I still thought was a
very big bull seal pass inches from my face. It was so close I couldn’t
see its
head or tail, only a wall of grey flesh. It didn’t occur to me it had
no fur. I could have reached out with a very bent elbow and touched it.
Having
done this in the past with “real” seals I knew they sometimes turn
around and snap. So I opted against it. I don’t understand why its
pectoral fin
didn’t hit me or I didn’t feel its wash.
I looked back towards Gary who by this time was trying to gain David’s
attention. By the time I turned back toward the shark it had circled
again this time a bit wider, but still too close to see it all at once.
I remember panning my head from its nose to tail and thinking, “That’s
a great
white shark.”
There was no time or thought to check the settings on my camera, I just
started pressing the button. Normally I don’t take the lens cap off
until I have settled on the bottom. This time, for some reason, I
removed it before jumping in. I managed three shots before it
disappeared into
the gloom. I looked again to Gary, patted the camera and punched the
‘air’. Gary’s eyes were wider at my response to the shark than the shark
itself.
The three of us then kept very low and in single file crawled up a
ridge through the kelp (me under it) to within five metres from the
surface. My stomach started to knot up. Initially I didn’t want to
check my air gauge in case it was low. That knowledge would cause me to
breathe even faster. I checked it, still heaps.
I remembered thinking... “This thing could come back. It could come
back and pick off any one of us. I have to live to tell this story, I
have to live to tell this story, I have to...”
Gary and David told me to stay put while they surfaced, signalled the
boat and descended back to me. I was very impressed with their
chivalry. Once we could see the boat overhead they told me to go first.
I’m not quite sure this was still chivalry!!!
On the surface I removed both camera lanyards before reaching the back
of the boat. Mike, the Skipper feared his boat would hit rocks so
put the engine into forward. The wash from the propeller pushed me
backward. I was on the surface and couldn’t get to the boat. It was now
time to drop my bundle. He reversed up again, I grabbed the dive
platform and hurled the expensive.. no... replaceable cameras on to the
deck. Raising both hands I politely requested they “@#%*!*# PULL ME IN!”
Gary and David were retrieved in much the same fashion. We then had to
find Pat. The fourth diver I had not seen in the water the whole
time. Pat had initially gone in on snorkel to encourage the seals in!
This didn’t work so he had returned to the boat to get his scuba gear.
There were anxious moments before we found Pat’s bubbles. Mike drove
the boat over the top of the bubbles and revved the engines.
Back on the boat Pat told us how he knew there was trouble when first
he heard the revving engine then looked up and could see through the
surface the rest of us looking over the side for him. He looked around,
thought “Go.. no.. go.. no.. go.. no..” and on “no” he went.
Mike recalls all the seals returning to the rocks and he thought it
quite amusing how they crooned their necks looking at our bubbles on the
surface. “Those STUPID divers!” they must have thought. Gary
remembered thinking at the time: “Oops, there goes Mary!” For the rest
of the day all Gary could say to me was, “ I thought you were gone. I
really thought you were gone.”
I may have come the closest to death but Gary got the biggest scare. He
watched it turn from a hazy seal on the edge of visibility to a five
metre great white inches from the back of my head, turning at the last
second.
It hasn’t affected me at all... Two days later I slept walked. First
thing in the morning and last thing at night the “what ifs” still
consume mythoughts. This big dumb animal decided at the last moment I
should live... I think it should too. I feel privileged yet
robbed. I was so comfortable in the water. Now, even a clump of kelp
floating mid water on the edge of viz sends a chill up my spine. Much
to the delight of some of my dive companions who are now having fun at
my expense!
Back home in Melbourne, Victoria I decided I would ring mum, but as she
is fast approaching seventy years of age, not mention all the
details... “We saw this great white shark swim past so I took a few
photos and we all got out.” She could sense the excitement in my voice.
Unimpressed she replied... “Oh really Mary, you’ve swam with sharks
before.”
