sharks....

[Guest]

anyone ever been attacked while cleaning the bottom of their boat ?

 

i had something bite my hand, and rip my wetsuit tonight, I flapped my hand and it let go, and I kind of glimpsed it swimming off, left a cut in my hand.....

 

shark ?? a little nipper ??

 

I have never jumped out of the water and up onto the boat so fast !! dam near shat my pants !

 

water seems very warm where the boat is in shoal bay, much warmer than I remember it previously.

[Atom Ant 0]

First of all I want to congratulate you on not shitting your wetsuit - I'm pretty sure I would have!

 

I've not been bitten but had the crap scared out of me when I turned around while cleaning the bottom only to have a large (well it looked it) mullet right in my face. I screamed, it screamed and took off.

[Guest]

Screw that. You are lucky that you still have your hand...

[wheels 543]

I screamed, it screamed and took off.

 

Rod_boy, I can't think of anything else that would have teeth long enough to go through the wetsuit and cut your hand, other than a Shark and maybe Grinna can correct me here, but I would expect a Shark of at least a metre to have teeth big enough. Or and I am really only guessing here, but what about say decent size Conger Eel. Could a Mooray be in such an area?? Kinda makes you think twice about dangling the pinkies over the side eh.

[Guest]

yeah, I dont really want to even walk in the water again this summer !

 

does anyone on crew know what kind of creatures live in our shallow harbour waters ?

 

An eel would be more believable , but from the glimpse I got of the thing it was short and grey.

[Guest]

heres a pic of the impression the f&^#(n little gritta left on my thumb !

 

its not that impressive....but its certainly got me thinking twice before jumping in !!

[wheels 543]

There are certainly sharks around, but noy usually a threat. But if you were creating a burley trail from the stuff coming off the boat, then you could have attracted something that had a go not realising what you were.

[Guest]

I was removing 2 weeks growth from the boat ! would have been like pizza hut all you can eat for fish !

[ScottiE 174]

I spent nearly 90mins knocking off the growth on my boat last w/e - the water was so warm that I didn't even bother with a wetsuit. It was only after I got out that I thought - if it's warm enough to tread water for that long its warm enough for sharks. I guess (read hope) they stay out of Westhaven.

[Guest]

Water.....warm. Are you kidding me I only go swimming when its at least 26 degrees

 

If it was a moreray eel you would not have a finger left as they are nasty little things when they bite you. Ill go with what someone else said and say that its a bronzy as they love the Auckland harbour. I havnt had a close encounter with a shark in Auckland besides kelly tarltons, but I have had to yell at some kids playing in the water several hundred meters from a mussel farm (i think) at the barrier as a shark was heading for them.

[Atom Ant 0]

Not sure what time of year it is, but don't Hammerheads go up towards Chelsea Sugar works way each year? They're nasty little biters and maybe a baby one took a nip? They are characterised by the way they swing their heads from side to side as they swim. As it swam away did it move like Stevie Wonder on stage?

[Grinna 2]

Bwahahahaha ... Stevie Wonder on stage ... bwahahaahahahaha

 

Seriously don't think it would have been a shark .... not from the lack of damage done to your hand. Even a small shark has razor sharp teeth that would be capable of doing a serious number on your hand.

 

I'm thinking large fish. If its any consolation it probably wasn't that interested in you ... more likely excited by the promise of a free feed caused by the hull cleaning and had a lunge at what looked like a tasty morsel (lucky you weren't peeing outside your wetsuit at the time).

 

Which fish??? Hard to say, but snapper certainly have teeth enough to cause damage though I've never been bitten by a snapper. I have been bitten on many occasions by blue cod. They are cheeky little buggers, very curious and very keen for a feed. They appear bluey grey underwater and they're a relatively short, vaguely eel like bodyform when they're swimming. My only reservation would be what the hell a blue cod was doing in Shoal Bay. The alternative is a conger eel ... they're carnivorous and can certainly deliver a powerful bite without the mouthful of razors that a shark would have ... but again, what's a conger doing in Shoal Bay and more to the point freely swimming about launching itself at stray hands.

 

Sorry .... difficult to come up with a definitive answer. The mind automatically leaps to "shark attack" (mainly because of Hollywood) but there are many, many beasties in the sea that bite.

[Guest]

As a word of caution - Matiatia Bay is not the world's best snorkling spot.

 

The local charter fisherman cleans out his catch at the head of the bay every day and the two or three Bronzies who clean it up for him are getting pretty big now.

 

I got smacked in the ankle by a stingray hunting for mussels off Corromandel in zero vis a while back. Barb got about 1cm from the bone and severed nerves so that I don't have feeling on the skin surface inside of my foot.

 

Having walked on water in flippers and pooed and weed myself at the same time I have verified that men can indeed multi task.

 

The sting itself wasn't that painful aside from the initial stab - it was the venom going through my leg and the rest of me about 20 minutes later that was the knockout.

[Guest]

Second that, I got stingrayed in Mexico and it was the most bloody painful thing ever. Luckily one of th elocla fishermen had some seriously good pain killers and I was in lala land most of the rest of the day. Did you know the "cure " for a stingray ataack is boiling water?

[Guest]

Not at the time but do now.

 

Apparently pour the hottest water you can stand on the wound and it neutralises the venom. Use Dr Google "hot water stingray".

 

Can't imagine myself saying - "yep - let go a steaming hot cuppa into that gapping wound for me will ya" at the time though!

[Guest]

My friendly Mexican placed a facecloth over the wound then poured boiling water straight out of the kettle on to it, definitely helped ease the pain. The drugs were OK too.

[John B 106]

We saw more shark last year than all the other years put together. The funniest being the 2.5 to 3 m unit at Mimiwhangata which came up as our friend was lowering herself off the stern ladder. She got ' the chills' and looked around to see it coming up 2 ft behind her.

 

We scored her 9.2, 9.6, 9.7 and one even at 9.9 ( for the dismount after the backflip into the cockpit)

 

It stuck around for 1/2 an hour or so, here's my boy playing with it.

 

 

The dinghy is 15 ft.. about 4.5 M or so( for perspective)

[Guest Rocket]

Could have been a barracouda - they bite on principle have had one get too interested when cleaning a hull before (might have been in Hawaii though).

 

I wouldn't get too worried about whats in the water its the mugs on or around it that are far more dangerous.

[Chewing Gum 17]

Meths is good for stingray cuts - they don't "sting' as such.

My father was a commercial fisherman and was often cut by them.

Meths was all he used.

[Chewing Gum 17]

Re sharks at Matiatia - saw a big one jump out of the water there last summer and I also heard about the guy gutting fish there.

One of the local iwi at Mahinepuha told us not to gut fish in his bay because it brings the sharks around - there is probably some in that as we have seen some big sharks in Fitzroy also - likely feeding on fish guts.