For the second time in a week, swimmers in Fox Point Beach, near Hubbards, NS, have seen each other closely and personal with a large white shark.
Maria Maclean-Guy, who lives in the area and studies the engineering of the University of Dalhousie, was diving with her mother and her brother on Monday afternoon when the three saw the shark.
“I was quite terrified,” he said. “The visibility in the water was not great, so you could not see more than 10 to 15 meters away … so we were just trying to monitor it at all times, and then we slowly supported ourselves to the shore to get out of the water.”
Last Wednesday, two divers met a large white shark on the same beach, about 53 kilometers west of Halifax.
But finding a shark while you have a tied oxygen tank is not the same as seeing one when you are diving near the surface of the water, Maclean-Guy said.
The big white sharks are experts in dammed surface dams, such as stamps, from below.
“They [the scuba divers] I had the ability to stay at the bottom and see it, “he said.” While we had to sit at the top and look, which is a slightly more scary position to be. ”
Maclean-guy has been diving at Fox Point Beach since she was a girl.
He knew that a shark had been seen there last week, but assumed that the possibilities of meeting another were quite low, joking with a friend who was going to “find the shark.”
I knew little that I would not have problems doing exactly.
“I looked at my left and … I was the shark,” he said. “That was when I shouted and said some profane words. And then I apologized to my mother to swear.”
It is probably not the same shark seen last week
Chris Harvey-Clark, a shark and veterinarian researcher who recently retired from the University of Dalhouseie, said that from its initial observations, the shark is youthful, but it does not seem to be the same seen last week.
He believes that the area is becoming a hot point for large targets.
“Only this year, we have had three Diver White Shark sightings, and now with this as a room, and everyone has grouped together in recent weeks,” he said.
Although shark attacks are quite rare, Harvey-Clark said it is important to take them seriously as a threat.
“In the same way that you would not feed a peanut butter sandwich in the Banff National Park … the same with these animals. When they are close, you quickly leave the water and the vigns and you are cautious because they have the potential to do great damage,” he said.
For some swimmers, getting so close to a shark could lead them to completely swear open water.
But Maclean-guy and his family opted for some exposure therapy.
“We went home, and then I thought, you know, if I’m not going to swim again today, I could never swim again,” he said. “So we went to swim quickly.”
