SHARK ENCOUNTER

SHARON ARMSTRONG

It was a sunny day with not more than a 10 knot SE wind blowing and the sea was very clean and clear. I took a casual 16km paddle from DUC to Umhlanga. As I got closer to the end, the sun was shining onto the sea as it was 2pm in the afternoon and it was hard to sea the end or sea into the water. I was close to the end of the paddle and starting to cut across left as I had ended up a bit far out and headed towards Durban View Umhlanga.

I was going no more than 10 km/ hour when I heard a massive bang which resembled a car accident which came with a huge impact. It hit me from the left side so I braced left to try stay upright, but then the impact threw me right and I got flung into the water. I knew immediately that it was a shark and with the force of the impact, I thought it was a big shark that was in attack mode.

At that point the panic set in and I flipped my boat upright and tried to remount in a bit of a panic.With the panic and the fact that the leash was wrapped around the boat, as well as the boat being on the side that is hard to remount, I struggled as the leash wouldn’t allow me to put my feet up. I realised that the more I splashed and panicked, the less chance I had of remounting and the more chance I had of attracting the shark back to possibly attack my legs that were thrashing around.

I was just anxiously dreading the next possible attack on my boat or myself. So I had to calm down at least, and as soon as I did, I managed to remount despite the fact that my leash was still around the boat. I took my leash off my leg to release it from below my boat and started paddling immediately.At that point I had no idea of the damage, so I glanced back to see if my tail was still intact, which it seemed to be. I started the paddle to back and only then did I realise my rudder was completely jammed and stuck at an angle which was forcing my boat to head away from the beach. The rudder had been forced into the back of the boat creating a substantial hole which resulted in the boat starting to fill with water. I tried to only paddle on the one side in an attempt to get the boat to veer right, but that was unsuccessful.

I then had to stop the boat and manoeuvre it physically to face the

“The width between the teeth of the 3.5 white is about 2 cm. The measurement between the three tooth punctures on the board is about 2cm (roughly). I would now suggest that it was a white shark (between 3 and 3.5m) that hit your board. This is also based on 1) species likely to attack board, 2) size of shark from video, 3) force of attack, 4) size of white sharks commonly found along KZBN coast.” Dr Matt Dicken, Head of Research and Monitoring, KZN Sharks Board

beach by back paddling, then paddle a few strokes to get closer to the beach and then do that again, until I made headway. It seemed forever and it felt like I would never get there.There was no chance of getting back to the beach where my car was so my main aim was just to beach anywhere I could. I wasn’t sure if the shark was still around and following me so when my boat filled up with water, there was a bit of a worry. 300m before backline I became concerned that my boat was about to sink and envisioned that I might have to swim the rest of the way.The boat was completely full with water but had enough flotation to continue moving forward. I managed to negotiate the surf as there were big gaps between sets and got to the shorebreak where I had to jump off as the boat was to heavy to get up the beach. The boat was now stuck in the shorebreak and I was worried it would get smashed so I kept trying to pull it up, but it wouldn’t budge. I finally managed to get it washed up enough for it to be on an incline and the water started draining through

the hole in the rudder until it was light enough to pull up the beach to safety. I finally got all the water out and phoned a friend to meet me at the closet accessible beach which was 1km from where I was. I dragged the boat to that beach and was given a lift back to my car.