Ignorance is Bliss
Posted on Friday 26th December 2008
Sometimes it’s better not to know. Recently you will have read that I got in the first dive of the season off Second Valley. We went in with little awareness of what else was sharing the waters.
In retrospect I’m glad we didn’t look at the AdelaideNow website as we may have been tempted to give it a miss. South Australian waters are commonly frequented by sharks which follow fish migrating up St. Vincent’s Gulf.
The first sighting was on the 8th December off Moana. The same shark was spotted again the following day near Christies Beach and then on the 11th around Port Willunga, which is only one bay up the coast from where we dived. More worryingly, two sharks were seen the day before we dived. If only we’d known or perhaps it’s better that we didn’t!
Over the Christmas period a bronze whaler shark has been spotted in multiple different locations up and down the coast with others seen in local waters intermittenly too in the past few days.
Fortunately the risk to scuba divers is very small and there have been no reported attacks this year. The last incident involved a researcher who was deliberately in the water with sharks and not wearing a Shark Shield. So, while it may sound like we were dancing with death, in fact we were probably at greater risk while driving home after the dive.
But that’s probably little reassurance to the angler whose boat was attacked recently:
A bronze whaler might bite you like a dog would if you got between him and his dinner. A grey nurse could give you a decent bite, but a great white could really do some damage.
Just remember, if you see seals and salmon in the water….