Death in Cocos from shark attack

[scubafanatic]

I'm not for closing Cocos to scuba divers over this, but I wonder what the critical mass (severity/number/time period) of such 'accidents' would be to trigger a crackdown by the governmental authorities there ?

I've only had one known case where I was feeling hunted by a shark (large bull shark/Bahamas/on the Juliet, back in 2004 , while we were snorkeling the shallows for lobsters (as it's illegal to scuba for lobsters in the Bahamas). Water was maybe 20-40 ft. deep. The trigger was some of us (not me) hand spearing, one of the crew had wounded a fish, which then snuggled into the rocks to escape, the blood drifted downstream and attracted a VERY interested big bull shark, who began circling under our small group of 3, if memory serves, smelling the wounded fish but only seeing us.

Otherwise I've never (knowingly) been 'on the menu', so to speak.

 

[JohnnyC]

Ultimately apex predators gonna predate. Any time you are in an environment where an apex predator operates, you are subject to their individual proclivities. If you hike in bear country, you may be eaten by a bear. If you go on safari in lion territory, you may be eaten by a bear. If you dive around sharks, you may be bitten by a shark. That's just the reality of the situation.

Neither downplaying the risks nor sensationalizing them accomplishes anything. And sometimes **** just happens, and it's tragic.

 

[Steelyeyes]

I used to hunt on land with rifles and bows. I've encountered every apex land predator in the lower 48 while engaged in that activity. I just put sharks in the same category as most bears. Most times they mean you no harm, sometimes they do. When they do there really isn't much you can do about it but be surprised. It never kept me out of the woods and it won't keep me out of the water.

I don't think any sort of "activity" needs to occur to change the situation. If you don't like the odds then don't go swimming where they live.

 

[scubafanatic]

I used to hunt on land with rifles and bows. I've encountered every apex land predator in the lower 48 while engaged in that activity. I just put sharks in the same category as most bears. Most times they mean you no harm, sometimes they do. When they do there really isn't much you can do about it but be surprised. It never kept me out of the woods and it won't keep me out of the water.

I don't think any sort of "activity" needs to occur to change the situation. If you don't like the odds then don't go swimming where they live.

I 'get it', but does the relevant governmental regulatory body 'get it' ?

 

[Kay Dee]

I'm not for closing Cocos to scuba divers over this, but I wonder what the critical mass (severity/number/time period) of such 'accidents' would be to trigger a crackdown by the governmental authorities there ?

I 'get it', but does the relevant governmental regulatory body 'get it' ?

What government authorities / regulatory body? Unless they have in recent years built condos or big hotels on the island, the only tourism to Cocos AFAIK is / are divers and it is / was 'run' by the Parks and Wildlife Service, or was back in the day, Given there is no land tourism, or beach goers and the like (or wasn't), save the odd researcher / scientist, then the government would be cutting off what is no doubt badly needed 'visitors' fees / income if they banned diving there. As for bad publicity what is it going to do, scare a few, not all divers away (which a ban would certainly accomplish) until the publicity dies down, so I cant see the government there banning anything.

As others have said, any time you go diving you enter an alien environment populated with strange creatures, big and small, that on their day just might want to attack you, or just give you a 'little nip' for good measure. The only way to avoid that completely is to stay outta the water / never go diving. Anyone who enters the ocean anywhere and thinks they are completely safe, but especially in known shark encounter areas, is naive in the extreme. it's their world after all, not 'ours' and they have their own 'rules and pecking order'. We're just (uninvited) visitors.

 

[Kay Dee]

That sounds awful - super stressful! Also, besides rapid movements, shiny objects (jewelry even as smell as studs on ears, rings, etc.) strobe flashes from cameras, high contrast colors are all items that can play a part.

That was awful. But there was a 'funny' side to it too.

We were out in the Coral Sea (my wife and I and other divers) well well east of the Great Barrier Grief. We were in 30m / 100ft of water and visibility was literally limitless, and during the dive more and more Whaler and Grey Reef sharks began showing up, until by the end of the dive there must have been fifty or even many more, circling out wide, like Indians circling a wagon train. Dive time was up and as we were diving from a mother ship from inflatables and had to ascend the water column and signal the nearby inflatable to be picked up up.

Not wanting to be on the surface too long, my wife and I waited till we saw the pick-up boat overhead and divers beginning to climb aboard before we began to slowly ascend.

Now we had a rep for always being the last ones outta the water so............before we were half way to the surface the boat took off back to the mother ship, figuring we'd be up by the time they got back. Well about half way up, the circling sharks began circling closer and closer and then some started making aggressive passes, pectoral fins down and arching their backs as the swam about (known signs of soon to be 'bad behavior)'. Given the amount of them I wasn't about to actually go right to the surface where I couldn't see them, so deployed an SMB (surface marker bouy, so the chase boat knew exactly where we were) and hung at about 10m/33ft. Given that I do not have eyes in the back of my head, I had my wife position herself back to back (she also had a camera so wasn't completely defenseless) with me. Anyway long story short after being buzzed continuously, and me (at least) having to fend some off with my camera with hard blows to their snout, the inflatable came back overhead and we not so slowly made our way to the surface and then made the quickest exit know to man. A Polaris Missile could not have exited the water faster!

Anyway, on the way back to the main boat I said to my wife, "Could you believe how many their were and how aggressive the ones that came really close to us where". She said, or words to this effect "No, after we were hanging there for a while and they started coming really close, I just closed my eyes and continually swung my camera about". And there is was thinking I had solid 'back-up'! But hey, what works, works, and we were both safe, so I couldn't get too angry. Actually I think we both cracked up laughing about it.

Oh, and the worst thing was, by the time we left the bottom neither of us had any film left in our camera's - of course - to shoot (pre digital dark ages times) so we missed, well photographically wise that is, all the up-close action. Shoulda heeded the old rule of always keep at least two shots left for the unexpected whilst surfacing. Oh well, it sure is burnt into my memory, and we don't have to worry about such important things as running outta film in the digital age!

 

[outofofficebrb]

@Kay Dee wow, what a story! I’m sure you were thinking wifey should have just kept that to herself and she should just have maintained she was a great defender of your back. Ha! Thanks for sharing!

I dived out in coral sea with spirit of freedom but skipped the night dive. Doing it after dinner when I was full and warm did not make it so compelling but folks said the shark action was on point.

 

[John Bantin]

Sharks can occasionally be dangerous but the water always is. Most casualties are from drowning or DCS, not shark bites.

 

[VirginiaScubaGuy]

I was arguing with somebody on this site about unprovoked shark attacks on divers. This is the first fatality I can recall ever that was an unprovoked attack on a scuba diver and not someone who was spearfishing or at the surface bobbing around.

 

[VirginiaScubaGuy]

With all your shark experience I'm surprised you would say :



Sharks that are fed suck. They are highly aggressive, they associate things with being fed such as hearing boat propellers show up, and divers in the water...

Explore Florida spear fishing to understand sharks and free food, and those sharks aren't even being fed, they take the speared fish from divers. Last time I was diving in Jupiter Florida it was a mixed boat with spear fishermen, they drop them separately for safety reasons for the rest of the divers (they attract sharks), toward the end of the dive somehow we ended up close to a spearo, I heard his gun go off and I tensed up because I knew what was coming, within 30-40 seconds two super aggressive large reef sharks came in like rocket propelled torpedoes from no-where, like rabid dogs they flew into each recreational diver and basically sniffed our crotches in super high speed before going to the next diver and the next, they did that all in about 20 seconds then they turned instantly and zoomed toward the spear diver, I can only surmise they got a whiff suddenly of his fish. Having a 6 foot reef shark at super high speed sniff your crotch and then turn to be 2 inches from your mask all in the space of about 1/2 second gives you a real good understanding of how defenseless you are in the water with these guys, the waters their element and they are built for speed, no defense against any shark moving like that.

Those are not even fed sharks, fed sharks are much worse. In Belize I had two other sharks do the same thing to me, but they were much bigger and much more agressive, they were beaten off by my camera rig. Everyone around was in denial or refused to admit that anybody was feeding sharks in that area... truth came out later that a boat was doing it to attract sharks for their trips out there. Sharks aren't stupid, they are predators and they can make basic associations in their little brains, and fed sharks suck.

I guess I'm anti-chumming and anti-shark trips because of the reason you say. We don't want sharks associating food with humans. I mean look at human beings when you say free breakfast. It's a free for all.