Kiteboarding Forums

Hi all

Over the weekend a surfer died in a shark attack at long beach. A great white attacked him.

Little more than two days later, a shark attacked two fishermen at Melkbos (where I kite a few times a week)

My only experience with sharks so far is : I spotted 2 ragged tooth sharks at kitebeach in december as I was about to land on one after doing a huge jump.

My other experience was in Shark Bay, Langebaan (way out, almost on the other side where the island is) when I lost my board - moments before I lost my board I saw a tiger shark jump out of the water, and moments later I saw little baby tiger sharks swimming beneath my feet!!! The current was going in one direction and the wind in another - it took me five minutes of boddy dragiing between sharkies to find my board. I still get shivers when I think about that day.

I'm not one to get in a panic over shark attacks, but if you count the amount of hours we spend in the ocean, and the vast distances we cover - shark attacks does become a reality.
What do you guys think? Any shark experiences? Thoughts?

Here's the articles of the two shark attacks - taken from IOL and news24:

Monster shark rips teen to death

A huge great white shark killed a teenage bodyboarder at a popular surf break off Cape Town's Noordhoek beach on Friday, dragging him under the water in its massive jaws and tossing him into the air.

A group of surfers and bodyboarders watched in horror as David Bornman, 19, of Newlands was attacked.

He was helped to the beach but bled to death within minutes despite receiving cardio-pulmonary resuscitation from a fellow surfer.

'It was the biggest shark I've ever seen in my life'
The shark's teeth bit into his body, causing a massive injury from his back down to his thigh.

Shocked surfers Peter Whale and Brent Mills were in the water about 50m offshore at Dunes, a surfing spot near the Kakapo wreck, when they saw the shark strike.

Whale said he heard a loud splash even though there were no sets of waves coming through.

"I looked across and saw this guy in the shark's mouth. It was the biggest shark I've ever seen in my life. It took him under, then came up and just tossed him and then disappeared."

Whale said he shouted "shark!" and they all started paddling in furiously.

'I told him he still had his legs'
Mills said he saw Bornman catch a wave towards the shore.

"But the water around him turned red. The whole wave was just blood."

He paddled out to help the stricken teenager, who told him he couldn't breathe.

"I told him he still had his legs but I could tell the bite was bad. You could see into his body."

Whale, who is trained as a rescue diver, gave Bornman CPR for half an hour but he was dead within minutes.

Mills said that just before the attack Bornman had caught a really good wave.

"I turned to him and said 'nice wave'. How can it go from being so much fun to this?" he asked.

Skymed flight paramedic Andre Jooste said the shark must have been huge.

"I've worked in KwaZulu-Natal and seen a lot of bites but this was the largest and most destructive I've ever seen."

Jooste said Bornman would have lost his entire blood volume within two minutes. "There is no way he could have survived."

He said the shark probably mistook Bornman for a seal.

"He was wearing a black wetsuit and fins and was on a black boogie board so he must have looked like a seal."

SA Lifesaving has now banned bathing between Noordhoek Beach and Scarborough until further notice. This includes popular beaches such as Long Beach at Kommetjie.

Spokesman Nicholas Reyneke said the police helicopter would patrol the False Bay coast and Noordhoek area today and tomorrow.

"Alarm bells do need to start ringing especially with the number of sharks we've seen in our waters over the past year," he said.

Shark expert Theo Ferreira said great white shark attacks on humans were very rare.

Ferreira, the founder and director of the Great White Shark Project, said a six-year study had found that white sharks were not aggressive animals by nature but were inquisitive.

Ferreira said this was a sad incident because it often created mass hysteria. He said the shark was only doing what it did naturally.

"It's a reality that if you enter their domain you risk an encounter with the animal. This risk gets greater the more further out behind the back water you are," he said.

"The shark was obviously attracted to that area because of the activity of fish."


Previous attacks

Last month, teenage surfer Joseph Krone escaped injury when a shark attacked him at Jeffreys Bay and bit his surfboard in three pieces.


In December, 35-year-old crayfish diver Craig Bovim narrowly escaped death when he was savaged by a great white shark off Scarborough.

His forearms were badly lacerated by the shark's teeth as he desperately thrust his hands into its mouth to ward off the attack.


In April 2001, an East London businessman, Dunstan Hogan, survived an attack by a great white shark while he was surfing at Cape St Francis. Hogan was hospitalised with a crescent-shaped bite wound on his thigh, buttock and hip.


In July 1999, 14-year-old Hercules Pretorius died minutes after he was savaged by a shark at Buffels Bay near Knysna while bodyboarding with friends. The shark attacked him about 50m from the shore, biting him in the side.


A 2001 report states that, in the past 20 years, nine people have died in shark attacks on the South African coast.



Men kill shark in 2nd attack

Rudolf Bokelmann and Sakkie Vermeulen with the shark that attacked their inflatable rubber boat. (Antonie Robertson, Die Burger)

Cape Town - Two men in a boat escaped with their lives from a second shark attack in as many days, killing it as it attacked.

This follows the death of 19-year-old David Bornman who was attacked by a Great White shark on Friday afternoon at Noordhoek Beach near Cape Town.

The Western Cape Livesavers Association decided on Sunday to reopen Noordhoek beach to bathers.

Then, on Sunday, a second shark struck, this time off Melkbosstrand.

Rudolf Bokelmann and Sakkie Vermeulen of Melkbosstrand had a narrow escape when a shark attacked them while they were fishing from an inflatable rubber boat.

Bokelmann said: "We were lying among the kelp. We didn't get a single bite and were just about to pull up the lines.

"As I was pulling in, the shark followed the sinker and started biting the boat and tugging at it."

Vermeulen said he grabbed his knife and stabbed the shark in the head and neck, but this did not deter it from ripping the ru8bber hull of the boat to pieces.

In desperation, Bokelmann grabbed the shark's tail and pulled the dying attacker into the boat.

"I was thinking: 'Today we die'."

The boat started deflating, but they managed to attract the attention of other fishing boats, who accomp

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Founding member - iKiteboarding.com

I was worried about this as well (I still am and I kak myself when I am in the water for anything longer than 5 seconds trying to relaunch a kite - in fact, I still have flashbacks of Jaws while kiting at Sterkies even though its 300km from the nearest salt water)

I spoke to Natal Sharks Board and statistically speaking, the chances of being bitten are the same (given the amount of people that swim in the sea and the amount of attacks that happen) as someone hitting you after going through a red robot while your car is simultaneously struck by lightening.(That wasn't it but it was something rediculous like that - I think there are less than 5 to 10 fatal shark attacks every year, with a total population of the world of billions)

There were three attacks in durban last year or the year before, but if you look in most cases, there was more reason than normal for these attacks (forgive me if I have heard incorrectly about these events). In the case of the first, the fisherman was fishing in the harbour, AT NIGHT, (The smell of blood on his hands probably didn't help either) and was attacked by a Tiger while standing in water.

The second was a guy on a paddleski who was attacked while fishing off his Paddleski. Guys reckon the shark went for him because of the smell of bait being washed off his paddleski by water. Not clever either.

Personally, I think we have to learn to live with the risk, and use non-lethal means if you are worried (like the shark pod which straps onto your leg). We are playing in an animals home territory and its not the sharks fault that we happen to look like seals on occasion, so we can't blame the shark.

the dangers are always very real, and we must never ever forget to respect nature and it's natural process that flows....

we cant stop kiting because of sharks, we will just always have to respect that this is their world that we are sharing with them, not them sharing it with us. unfortunately there will always be one who comes off second best.

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Juanita.

Hi

Im quite new to the coast and would like to know what happens in an unfortunate instance like this:

-Does any one go after the shark (i heard that the shark was occasionally spotted in that area for 2 weeks now, dont know how true that is?)
-Does that same shark not pose a greater risk now that he has already had his first taste of human blood ?

Thanks

Nah, I queried a game ranger on animals getting a taste for human blood, and its not a taste issue. Its an issue of the ease of catching its prey.

When it comes to lions, leopards etc attacking human's, the reason they are hunted down is due to the potential for repeat attacks because they then see humans as easy targets. (and we are pretty easy targets when it comes to lions etc if we're unarmed. We can't run half as fast as a buck) The animal remembers the ease at which it caught its prey and will continue to target that.

With regard to leopards and lions I agree with Athol, as they eat anything consisting of flesh.

But it the case of sharks - have you ever heard of a shark eating a whole human, or taking more than one bite. Sharks are curious and mistake humans for seals.

But normally as soon as they've taken a munch and they get the dissapointing taste of humans they venture off.

So I'd say in this instance this guy who has been attacked probably did us all a favour, as next time this shark will probably remember that humans don't taste that good. (been watching discovery channel)

Carlo

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Founding member - iKiteboarding.com

I've lost my board well beyond backline at the mouth of the Msikaba river on the Wild Coast, and after battling to get back to my board because of the current, just body-dragged the hell outa there and waited for the my board to wash up about 3km down wind later that afternoon.


but Alwin van Breda has one of the most impresssive war stories about (surviving) a shark attack at Umdloti a coupla years ago. the story is that he has the munched up board AND he jaw bone of the offending animal. makes for an interesting wall mounting.

You guys have stirred my insides, Instead of usually ignoring the fact that that there may be a shark somewhere out there and ready to strike, I have now thought about it . . . thank you very much for freaking me out!
You can never know enough about a potential risk . . . I did some digging and now I can’t decide whether I really like sharks or whether I am going to piss in my wetsuit when I drop my kite a bit too far from shore in light wind. I went to the national geographic website and found an article headed “ 10 cool things you didn’t know about sharks”, yeah right! Whatever you say: “Strong and deadly, silent and swift, insatiable in its hunger for flesh - there is no more powerful image in nature than that of the shark”, that’s how it starts . . . loco
roughly:
Great whites are the only sharks that can hold their heads up out of the water. This ability allows them to look for potential prey at the surface. Great white sharks usually attack from underneath, surprising their unwary prey. Great white sharks can sprint through the water at speeds of 69 kilometres an hour. Great white sharks prefer to eat seals, sea lions, and the occasional dolphin; they’ve been known to swallow lots of other things (take a guess) .The sharks use two small sensors in the skull to hear and, perhaps, to zero in on the splashing sounds of a wounded fish or a struggling seal or . . .
The longest confirmed great white shark measured 19.5 feet (5.9 meters). A great white shark isn’t all white. A pale belly and dark charcoal-grey back help the shark avoid detection by prey. Viewed from above, the shark’s dark-coloured back blends with the murky seafloor. From below, the shark’s belly matches the light-coloured surface. Sneaky!

Hearing -- The first signal a shark detects is often irregular, low frequency sounds made by an animal in distress. The shark turns and moves in the direction of the sounds. Smell -- As a shark swims, it senses the odour of prey and continues upstream, crisscrossing the odour trail. Vision -- When a shark is close enough to see the prey, it can better judge the prey's location and whether it might be an acceptable meal. Feel -- As a shark moves even closer, its lateral line sense helps it to detect the prey's water movement. It might also feel the prey directly by bumping it. Taste -- At the final moment of attack, a shark often takes an initial bite, or simply "mouths" the prey without biting, to decide if it is edible.
Average swimming speed of a shark: About a yard per second. Worldwide shark attack rate: Less than 100 a year, with only 25 to 30 fatalities. Given the number of people who spend time in the ocean, this is low. Number of sharks killed by fishers each year: 30 to 100 million

We don’t stand a chance . . . but I’m still kiting

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Sjoukje

Naish Kiteboarding - Oxbow Surfwear - Oakley

www.sjoukje.co.za
me@sjoukje.co.za
+27 72 8419889

Sharks are part and parcel of surfing ,kitesurfing .I have been diving and surfing for the past 20 years and i still have not encountered a shark face to face.I am certain that many have seen me. I beleive you should be cautious avoid , dirty water, leave the water if youre bleeding, avoid dusk and early dawn sesions etc.However its their enviroment if you let it consume your mind youre not going to enjoy your time in the ocean. I suppose you need to leave it up to fate, because nothing is going to keep you out the water.


check out the picks , the surfer pic is not me.

shark or dolphin