MILNERTON
B u r g e r
Email: tyger@dieburger.com
Wednesday 16 May 2012
Tel: 021 910 6500
Fax: 021 910 6501
) Frequent sightings ‘not the norm’
Sharks looming large
The area in front of the Seli 1 wreck is a favourite spot for surfers, stand up paddlers and kitesurfers. Stand up paddlers and a beachgoer recently reported seeing two different sharks here within a week. Photo: Leon Steenkamp
LEON STEENKAMP
Shark encounters along the local coastline seem to be on the rise with several incidents reported over the last month. After a tweet about a possible great white shark sighting at the Seli 1 wreck last week, TygerBurger questioned several water users about the presence of these sharks in the waters of Bloubergstrand and Melkbosstrand. A local water safety officer, Derrick Frazer, who is involved with many ocean events in the area, confirms the presence of one specific great white shark off Bloubergstrand. “On 26 April I had to pull two
swimmers who were trying to complete the swim from Robben Island to Bloubergstrand from the water when I noticed a shark. That was 1,5km from the beach,” Frazer says. He says it is rumoured there are two female great white sharks cruising the water but others speculate that it might be the same shark that has been periodically seen over the last two years. “They are seasonal and travel up to Mozambique at this time of the year. These sharks can travel up to 1 000km a day which means the shark you saw today can be gone tomorrow,” he says. He had recently researched the occurrence of sharks on the Atlantic side of Cape Town. “I did quite a bit of research into
this. The last recorded shark incident was towards Clifton’s side and that was 40 years ago.” Frazer says the risk of sharks is always a factor. “Sharks will always be there. It is part of the risk of being in the ocean, but it is still much riskier driving to the beach,” he says. The sighting at the Seli wreck is however noteworthy as the shark was seen on the coastal side of the ship which is stranded 800m from the beach. The Wreck, as the area is known among locals, is a favourite spot for stand up paddlers, kiteboarders and surfers. Caryn Jones from Durbanville was the person who reported the shark sighting to Sharkspotters last Tuesday.
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“We were sitting on the beach to the right of the wreck when I saw this substantially big fin standing out of the water. It moved like I would imagine a shark would. “It was moving towards the beach and when the waves came up you could see the shape through the water,” Jones says. She judged the animal to be about 100m from the beach. “We were there for about an hour and a half and watched it kind of patrolling along the shore. It disappeared about 15 minutes before we left. It was difficult to judge the size but it was big, bigger than a seal or anything else I have seen before.” She says at the time there were surfers and stand up paddlers in the water closer to the wreck.
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“The water wasn’t very cold that day, I remember thinking that it wasn’t as cold as I would imagine it to be,” she says. Stand up paddler Michelle Fourie from Melkbosstrand spotted two sharks in one week recently, also at The Wreck. “We were chased out of the water by a shark about two months ago. A whole bunch of us spotted the shark. It was about 20m away. It didn’t come toward us or follow us. We didn’t feel threatened that it was there to eat us,” Fourie says. Fourie, who has been surfing for 14 years and has almost never seen a shark up close, says it is strange to suddenly experience two shark sightings less than a week apart. . To page 2.
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