Man Eating Shark

[Ringo Sweeny]

you know Soul Surfer, I was paddling back out to the lineup at Grajagan one day for one last wave before the tide was too low, everyone had gone in, and I was around 200 metres off dry reef in about 20 feet of water, when there was all htis swirling around me and then something big, real big (a 15 foot Tiger Shark) came underneath a pack of about 20 5-6foot White Tipped Reef Sharks, causing them to breach all around me. they all breached about 1-2 feet into the air and then there was absolute stillness. very errie, as I had to keep paddling in the same direction to reach Money Trees to take off, on an 8-10 foot day.

all I could think of was my advice from my dive instructor, back at Sea world on the Gold Coast, who told me that sharks respond to the electrical discharges your body emits, especially from your heart, so my mantra was stay strong, keep paddling and thank the Tiger of the Reef for dispersing the Reef Sharks which may have been milling around for a kill.

 

[CanonMan]

I'd prefer the white tips swarming around me as opposed to a 15ft(?) Tiger, any day....

 

[Ringo Sweeny]

when the 1994 tsunami hit Grajagan (300 lost souls from the fishing village) 6 huts got grinded off the point plus a section of the mess hall. 12 surfers heard a large raw like an Airplane sreaming down the reef and then found themselves 40 feet underwater tangled in what was thought to be inpenetrable bamboo jungle. no fatalities amongst the surf crew as they are adept at reaching the surface after a severe wipeout.

the point of the story is that there were journals kept going back to early days of the camp. one particular journal from 1981 had a one page entry describing a phenomenon that is as equally hard to fathom as mine in 1990:

6 surfers were still in the lineup on an 8 foot day as the tide was dropping fast, closing out the end section. a Javanese Tiger (which are now believed to be extinct; we can only pray that this is not the case) walked out onto the reef and sat contemplating the surfers only 70 metres offshore. whether hungry or just taking some time out from his jungle haunt no-one knew.

as the surfers all froze in fear, out behind the lineup the 15 foot resident tiger shark began gliding effortlessly gradually closing on the surfers who were now bunched in a state of surrealism. after about an hour the Tiger had seen what he had ventured out to look at and casually returned to the jungle. in those days the camp was protected by 3 rangers at all times armed with their weapons of choice to ward off the local Tiger family on their nightime foraging adventures. a really special time in a really special place, that is one day earmarked for a large Hotel development.