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23/10/2006: "BIG SHARKS AND DIVERS"
Q."Was it really 20 feet? Hopefully not. It was the largest tiger I've ever seen"
I wasn’t going to swim up with a tape measure that’s for certain.
The smaller shark on the bottom was caught by guests on the charter boat, it was said to be nine foot long, but this could have been an exaggeration.
The big tiger shark ate the smaller shark moments after these pictures were taken forty feet away on the surface, late in the afternoon.
Our eyes popped in their sockets at the sight of such power and size.
Maybe it’s rare for sharks this big to exist these days?
Saumarez Reef, where this happened, is located in The Coral Sea, over 200 miles from the coast on the Tropic of Capricorn.
Big sharks are just one hazard faced daily by abalone divers. The shark that will chew them to pieces is a white pointer, faster and with larger triangular teeth.
While abalone divers are making seventy thousand dollars a day (phew), they face the risk of becoming dinner for a shark anyday.
The smarter divers sub-contract the work and don’t even get wet anymore. Just the same they had years of looking constantly into the hazy distance underwater.
i.e. In a best-case abalone diver scenario, if you see the shark, your reaction (whatever that may be) will probably distract it from taking a ‘taste bite’. Any sudden movement of surprise may be sufficient.
With no human reaction at all, a large tiger shark will simply open it’s mouth around you, and then it’s all over.
There are several mysterious incidences of divers simply vanishing off Cairns and Port Douglas. As a consequence not much GBR night diving is done these days.
Examples. Late afternoon and a young man makes a swan dive off the charter boat, splash. He does not surface and is never seen again. People saw him dive, but he has vanished.
Scuba instructor Doug Smith goes spearfishing for the dinner table and simply vanishes. His weight belt and speargun are found nearby underwater, nothing else.
To experienced shark watchers, these disappearances point to a large shark feeding. People who study shark situations are often frustrated when the coroner does not find the cause of death to have been due to a shark.
To others this is understandable and an effort to spare relatives any further grief.
