Occasionally, I squeek my hands across the nose of my board, I figure, If people hate it, sharks might too.
Rhino,
I actually NEVER do this or any other acoustic jazz with my board while in the water. Not any more at least. One time I was tripping out on the nice reverb sound my board made in the water as I tapped on it. All of a sudden something pretty big or strong or both tagged (attacked?) the tail of my board. Scared the shit out of me. I’m absolutely positively convinced that making noises with your board in the water attacts sea life. I stay as silent as possible.
me too… the Hydro Epics make really good drums though because they are hollow and lively. I’d sometimes feel like banging on my board was like ringing a dinner bell.
I think you are what you project. If you think of yourself as food… you’re food. If you think of yourself as the big dog, other big animals will think twice before risking an encounter.
Sharks, especially Great Whites (the kind I get to swim with most) are really smart. They’ve patroled our oceans since before there were trees. They are cautious, and habitual. They have individual personalities and traits. They don’t usually attack without careful forethought. They also require huge amounts of feul to stay fit. Seals are full of fat… that’s shark feul. Humans aren’t worth eating because we don’t have enough fat. It requires more energy to eat us than we provide back.
I believe I’m not shark food. I’ve been bumped once, and I’ve seen some sharks, but I haven’t been bitten yet. I hope not to be.
like why did Bethany get bit and not Alana Blanchard or her dad. or why did that girl get bit last week at leftovers but not the other two guys she was surfing with… That’s the hard part trying to figure out how the pick their target.
I don’t know if there are any good answers.
Kia ora Onelua,
Last year I meant to offer a theoretical answer relating to your question as to why these young women were attacked and not others they were surfing with. What comes up for me is the possibility that, and with all due respect to them, menstruation could have had a major influence on the proceedings. Here in New Zealand, where we have not only sharks, but also very large eels, it is/was common practice that any woman at that time of her monthly cycle, not swim in the rivers as they would be exposed to being bitten by an eel. A male friend resting on a rock in a stream with a bleeding knee has told me about being bitten by an eel. Research shows that bear attacks on menstruating women is more in the myth region than truth. However bear experts recommend that all perfumes etc should not be worn. In the ocean, blood is commonly associated with attracting sharks.
The majority of us lurking, or participating in this forum are, or will be parents. What advice should be provided to our daughters, wives and friends, as I am reasonably certain that this is an issue and that there is risk associated with women surfing during menses.
ride really big boards. Apex predators cull the weak & small from the herd - they don't take on things their own size. :)
Uh-oh! Is this why some of Dale’s mats are called “triscuts”? Don’t know how true it is but someone rattled of some stats to me about board size vs attack rates and over 9 or 10 feet your pretty sate. 6 feet and under…snack.
ride really big boards. Apex predators cull the weak & small from the herd - they don’t take on things their own size.
Uh-oh! Is this why some of Dale’s mats are called “triscuts”? Don’t know how true it is but someone rattled of some stats to me about board size vs attack rates and over 9 or 10 feet your pretty sate. 6 feet and under…snack.
At least according to his info.
But then there’s the case of the guy and his girl-friend (or wife) in sea kayaks in (as I best recall) Santa Monica Bay.
no sweat on your point#1 (kill all sharks) - the Chinese fishing fleets are more than happy to oblige. for the last few decades they decimated the shark population here… then they left, but first they taught the local fishermen the value of a shark fin.
Interesting to hear you speak of the “smell” of sharks Oneula. After many years working on fishing boats I can confirm that sharks have a very strong odour but you have to cut them open to smell it. The stomach of a shark especially large tigers have one of the most most pungent stenches you can imagine. I’ve seen all kinds of shit in there, big chunks of net, hunks of metal etc etc. As an experiment the engineer and I threw an old 44 gallon drum near a big tiger and watched it mouth the drum and give it a little shake. That would probably rip a limb off. Big tigers cruise behind the trawlers almost constantly looking for leftovers. To me they are just giant garbage collectors, picking up anything sick,injured or just floating there. I think they will mouth anything to see if it is food. But I doubt if you could smell a shark from the surface.
When baitfish are running you can definitely smell fish in the water but that is a different story. Steve
Uh-oh! Is this why some of Dale’s mats are called “triscuts”? Don’t know how true it is but someone rattled of some stats to me about board size vs attack rates and over 9 or 10 feet your pretty sate. 6 feet and under…snack.
At least according to his info.
A couple of times now I have been called out of the water in cape town because of big fish, two times on a 10 foot singlefin. However size may not be the issue as they have "investigated " sea-going canoes and kayaks… I was not subject to “investigation”, I just paddled harder than I ever paddled before when the horn went off. Just recently in May, two seals were right along side me all the way to the inside so I can only assume the shark spotter wasn’t kidding when he told me that a 15 foot female had surfaced less than 100 meters behind the breaker line… You see loads of things swimming around the ocean there, and your mind plays tricks with you, so do the dolphins and seals and whales! What just last year October, there’s nothing like a southern right whale flipper slowly rising over the swells, feels like your heart is gonna pop out of your ears until you realize it is a whale slowly rolling belly up for a fart…
Interesting to hear you speak of the "smell" of sharks Oneula.
A couple weeks ago I spent a few days with my friend Susan Casey - who wrote “Devils Teeth”, a NY Times best-seller about white sharks in the Farallones - and a few of her shark researcher buddies. All of us agreed that you could feel when sharks were nearby. These guys sit around all day waiting for Great Whites. They said they could ALWAYS feel them before they could see them. That’s how powerful their vibe is.
Susan was making a comparison between sharks and other top-tier preditors. Two months ago she was walking alone in the snow at night, when some of her friends saw her and came over. They discovered fresh cougar tracks less than 30’ away. They taced the tracks and saw that the cat was following Susan for a while, then moved closer to get a better look - and maybe have a snack. Susan had no clue she was being watched. She said sharks are very different in that way. Every time she’s seen a Great White, she’s felt it first.
When you get that “sharky feeling” in the water, you should pay attention to it.
well you can get a friend who doesnt know what he/she is doing and tell them that you can get the best waves sitting way on the outside…“nope…keep going!”
or we can pull the old pit bull technique…demonize the breed and ban it from everywhere…those who dont obey are destroyed
theres no way to prevent shark attacks…theres a reason theyve been around for 300000000 years…and give pit bulls a chance
