I remember the firs time I saw a shark, I was a 8 year old and I was freediving (better say snorkeling) in a wreck close to my house. My uncle was taking underwater pictures and asked me to went down and pass through a hole in the wreck. When I was about to pass out the hole, a nurse shark was coming in. Both (shark and me) ran like a ray. After that I had seen some sharks (oceanic white tip, lemon, gray, nurse (again)). They usually didn´t give me too much attention and disappear in the blue like ghosts. But 1 month ago I had a new experience, I took a friend to a place where we ussually found grey sharks, because I wanted that he saw how etereous they are, and that the real danger is very low. I went also with my brother and a friend who is a spearo ( but he shoots everything in movement). We leave the sail boat and swam about 500 meters away from it. Then our spearo friend, shoot a big blue parrot fish (as I tell you before, he shoots everything), but because we where far away from the boat he had to continue with the fish in his hand, after 10 minutes I decided to turn around towards the sail boat, when a 3 meters gray shark come to us. I was fascinated because he looked like a plane. He was swimming around us, and I dove several times under him to see it better. At that moment I realized that that was the first encounter of my friend with a shark and looked him. He was paralized, and at that moment a 2.5 meters grey shark join us. I pointed him the boat, and he started to swim very slowly. I said to the spearo that give the fish to the big guys, but he didn´t want to do that. He just took the fish out of the water. We started to go back to our boat, but the 2 sharks came behind us. That was a strange behavior because they usually vanish rapidly. The "little" shark was swimming very fast and with no grace. I asked again to the spearo to gave them the fish. He said no. At that moment I saw the most terrorific scene in my life the 2.5 metrs shark was swimming as fast as a bullet towards my brothers, He puts his fins in front and wait for the hit. The shark hit his fins with incredible force and inmediatly my brother gave him a strong kick in his head. Then the shark come to my legs, but as soon as I had it close, gave him another kick in the head. After that the spearo gave him the fish, and the biggest shark ate it at once. They get apart a little bit and we can reach the boat. I never expected to be attacked by a shark, because all the times they were very gentle with me, I remember how hard was one time when I tried to photograph 3 grey sharks, they always ran away from me. I think the biggest problem was the fish and the other was our attitude of swim away from them. Whit this story I don´t want to say that the sharks are maneaters. They are one of the most beautiful animals but We have to undestand they behavior to avoid danger situations.
Frank Pernett
Frank Pernett
