Training with my partner Rob this morning off Henley Beach, Adelaide, Australia we were 2k into a planned 8k swim, both of us wearing Orca 3.8 suits and we had a Shark Shield FREEDOM 7 unit on.
Near large jetty I got that funny spooked feeling...we had moved into deeper water to get out of the surf break and visibility was very low today from recent rainfall. I stopped and tagged Rob to suggest we move shallower then suddenly a patrol chopper was overhead, hovering low off the end of the jetty. We knew it was a shark spotter and an alarm sounded - beach lifeguards were franticall waving us in, and we did not hesitate to get into shallow water asap. We joined the large gathering watching from the jetty as the beach patrol drove what was a large shark away from the beach in a semi-rigid, what was guessed to be a 6-7 foot White Pointer.
We got back in a bit further back down the beach both a little freaked and started back for another leg staying very shallow, then the low battery signal came on the Shark Shield so we called it a day at the beach and headed over to the local 50m pool to wrap up the rest of the 8k.
We'll be doing a lot of training this summer off Adelaide and will be putting a lot of faith into the Shark Shield units. Anyone have any experience with them?
Todd
Former Member
chaos: Not exactly sure yet, we are being tested by the Australian Marine Stinger Advisory Board. I will post more as I find out. The more I learn about the stingers the more concerned I get. We had to re-route a PR/campaign swim in the Whitsunday Islands planned for Feb. 20th to the far side of the Reef - the coastal Box Jellyfish is something you can't even take a small risk of being stung by... www.stingeradvisor.com.au/
Jim Thornton: Very cool, would love to read it, I can't seem to get your profile to open but you could send it to me here: todd @ gbrswim.org
Thanks!
i've also read that article about the shark shield actually attracting sharks (the manufacturer claims to have fixed this defect.
Haha. That's in version 2.0, where the list of bugs fixed is only one, not to attract sharks.
Had a crazy shark sighting this past weekend...our first one. It was almost 7pm, the latest we had ever been in the water, very clear water vis & conditions; had seen plenty of rays, which we have ID'd as Southern Eagle Rays (aka Bull Rays here in Oz) and also saw a very rare Western Shovelnose Ray.
With about 2k left to go we had jumped back in off the end of the jetty (Glenelg) after a water break and we were out in fairly deeper water. We had just passed a large rock island we have affectionately called Cable Junction (JAWS fans will get this...) and suddenly my partner Rob slammed right into me and says "Get out of the water NOW!" The look on his face was terror and my adrenaline exploded, Rob is far less concerned with sharks than me and doesn't spook easy so I knew right away he had seen one. Needless to say we covered the 200m into shallow water fairly quickly.
He saw a large shark, approx. 3m long and off to our right (oceanside) seen against the setting sun, it was only a few meters away and cruising same direction with us. Getting a good descripton from him; coloring, size, tail lobe shape it was very likely a very large Bronze Whaler. They are frequent here and can be caught off the jetty. So we've seen our first shark up close in the open water, there will be more. We told the lifeguards and they hit the sirens and cleared the water and brought in the shark chopper, slight bit of overkill there........
Coincidenatally there was a shark attack here in Oz the same day up in the Whitsundays, we are heading up there this coming weekend to do a 14.5k swim from Whitsunday Island to Hamilton Island. However we are all more concerned with stingers than sharks.
PS: We were not wearing the Shark Shields on this swim............
