Shark attack stories

[BacardiSpice]

ScottyK, I remember the Ford case well. It was not long before I took my OW. I had a hard time persuading my sister to do the course with me, because she was terrified of sharks. I attempted to persuade her that the chance of an attack was absolutely minimal with all the facts and figures at my disposal. It was an uphill struggle - you see, she'd helped organise the wedding reception for the Fords at the Yacht Club where she worked. They lived not far from us, and attended the same church as my parents.

It often came up for discussion at my LDS, because John Ford had dived with them in the past. They were horrified by what had happened, and I remember that the dive shop owner said he thought that from how he remembered Ford - by all accounts a wonderful bloke - he would have been unhappy with all the anti-shark hysteria that occured in the wake of his death.

I seem to recall the case you're talking about rstark - wasn't it Oceanic Whitetips, two of them, in an attack somewhere in Hawaii?

 

[ScottyK]

Bacardi- Sorry to hear about your connection to such a tragic event. That story was all over the place for a while and that's why I figured it might be what Rstark was talking about.

I hadn't heard about the attack in Hawaii. If that is what you are talking about, and you find it, post a link or something. I'd be interested in reading it.

Scott

 

[rds4640]

BacardiSpice once bubbled...
I seem to recall the case you're talking about rstark - wasn't it Oceanic Whitetips, two of them, in an attack somewhere in Hawaii?

I think it was. Any Ideas on where to find the story?

 

[SeaJay]

ScottyK once bubbled...
While they waited the Great White appeared under them. It was estimated at about 17 feet long. It started coming up towards Debbie Ford. John, her new husband pushed her out of the way and the shark took him.

<snip>

During this struggle the shark vomited up the torso of John Ford. It finally bit through the line and escaped. The head of John Ford was found some days later on the bottom of the ocean.

Sorry, man... Gonna have to throw the "BS Flag" on this one. I think that YOU are relaying the story accurately, but I just don't think that the story that you were told is true.

Sorry.

 

[ScottyK]

Hey SeaJay- I agree with you, and mentioned seeing several versions of this story myself, so no offense taken.

I actually just copy/pasted from an article on a shark attack site. IIRC the story (like most stories, I guess) has grown with the telling. When I read it a few years ago the shark wasn't quite that big , and there was no mention of finding any body parts.

For the record, I'll see if I can dig up a more reputable version, and will add it to this thread.


Scott

 

[SeaJay]

Cool!

 

[rds4640]

While you're looking, if you come accross the story I'm looking for, let me know.

 

[ScottyK]

Will do Rob. I'm not having much luck with either story on the internet. I found an even "more" sensationalized version of the Great White attack.

This might require a Friday night trip to Borders for a large coffee and some old fashioned manual research. I'll keep you posted!

 

[etype]

ok, here’s my sensationalized bull**** shark story. I was doing a cable inspection in the harbour of Seosan-City, Chungnam Korea. I had to take a piss real bad, and i was bored and figured we could get away with the amount of surveying we had done for the day and go home early, so i signaled time out and me and my partners started our ascent from 50 metres...along the way i thought we were being inspected by a lone dolphin or something, not unusual. It’s possible later that we just imagined seeing something. So we pulled out of the water onto this articulated gangway off the side of the boat...and i pulled my drysuit down to my knees and pulled out moby-dick and started to pee in the water. And this shark hit the surface a foot or two from where my piss was splashing the surface and it threw it’s head sideways thrashing and bit the gangway and pulled it down into the water, and then let go so it popped up with a rusty groan. For just a millisecond the shark looked me right in the freakin eye...it’s hard to describe...i just felt this very cold and palpable shot of either fear or recognition like icewater down the core of my spine, i was looking at something very neutral...that wanted to rip my legs off so that the blood gushed several meters akimbo nonetheless. No one said a word for a few minutes...and we could see a faint outline of this beast a few meters below passing under the gangway, quite beautiful and unhurried. My one friend said it was a thresher...i’m not sure why he made that i.d. It was a fairly big shark although we could only tell by what we saw of it’s head and it’s silhouette below the surface, but i’m guessing 12 feet. Anyway we asked our pilot and he laughed for 5 minutes or so, and answered our questions with laughs until we were prepared to slap him across the face. Apparently sharks take quite a few people in that harbour, scoop them off of the many small rafts that are made of wood woven together with rushes they use there to go out and set nets. That shark was definitely man eater size. We didn’t go diving again until we had bang sticks...and from then on it was like picking apples in hostile indian territory. But the weirdest thing...i can remember exactly what it was like to look it straight in the eye....it was only a meter away from my toes when it’s head was sideways and i looked in it’s eye..and from all i could tell it was looking straight back. I felt a shot of fear that was related to being bitten...but what i got from looking it in the eye was the sensation that it was intelligent, it was just another shark day, and maybe take a shot at those divers....what the hell?
But still, it’s something you can’t describe when you look at something rather scary like that, it’s something you will not forget, ever...but the strangest thing is the feeling there was some sort of communication.

 

[ScottyK]

First off- Etype, great story! It made the hair on my neck stand up.

You should have used the bang stick on that smart ass pilot.

Didn't have much luck yet researching either story. I was really disappointed with the book selection at Borders and will need to look around some more. All of the titles that specifically dealt with shark attack were crappy "thrill reads". The covers all looked like a variation of the famous "JAWS" poster!

Until further notice.........

Scott