A Great White Shark jumped from the ocean into this boat in South Africa. Photo Courtesy of news.blogs.cnn.com
A 10 foot 1,100 lb. Great White Shark jumped right into a researcher’s boat last week. The researchers were following four sharks off the coast of South Africa (ironic?), as part of an ongoing study, when suddenly a Great White literally jumped into their research vessel!
The researchers maintain a blog, and Dorien Schroder, one of the researchers wrote, “Next thing I know I hear a splash, and see a white shark breach out of the water from the side of the boat hovering, literally, over the crewmember who was chumming on the boat’s port side.”
Apparently Schroder helped that crewmember avoid being slammed by the shark, while the other people in the boat jumped out of the way. It sounds like the shark wasn’t fully in the boat when it landed, and the crew figured it would slide right off-but it didn’t. It actually got itself pretty stuck in the backside of the boat, and even cut the fuel lines of the boat in the process.
Obviously, the researcher’s had to call for help. Schroder did what one could to help keep the shark alive while help approached-water was continuously poured over the shark’s gills. When help arrived, a rope was tied to the sharks tail, but the shark stayed in the boat.
After a water hose was put down the sharks throat to make sure it didn’t die in the process, a fishing boat came up and helped lift the shark with a crane and plop it back in the water.
Crazy, huh? But guess what? That didn’t really end the researchers dealing with the shark. They found it beached in a nearby harbor about 30 minutes later. And what’s more is the shark didn’t want to go into deeper waters, even when the researchers tried to help it out to sea. They had to tie it up, again, and drag it out (humanely) off shore where they were finally able to release it and watch it swim away.
This definitely gives new meaning to, “the one that got away”!
