List of some of fatal shark attacks in South Africa.

I find this quite interesting having been probably closer to being taken twice whilst spear fishing at Millers Point and Arniston...one does become foolishly complacent but I now know just very fortunate...it is a huge gamble...it all depends on their "mood" or if they have eaten recently or not and ones reaction...panic and reaction certainly spurs them on but you cannot blame them...you are an intruder in their domain. Some are not so fortunate...here are just some as I believe there were many more in the very olden days...I read a Boer war pow was taken off Boulders Beach in 1900 whilst bathing in shallow water and never found. But this list does not go that far back.

Actually it does go back further but typical Wikipedia...it gets some finer details wrong...ie some of the places are not in Western Cape but Garden Route and Eastern Cape.

List of fatal shark attacks in South African territorial waters - Wikipedia

Man am I glad I did most of my surfing in the Cape in the Sixties.....and who in their right mind would go in the water in Port St Johns! Interesting reference!

In the sixties there is an interesting note that Great Whites had not been recorded as responsible in Western Cape although as far back as the turn of the century in 1900 there were a few. Good observation Mozart. But there was one in 1971 in Buffels Baai ( I assume thats the one near Cape Point) on Theo Klein....then after some time at Cape Point on Adrian Heyman in July 1984. From then on they started appearing and our encounter happened once at Millers Point off Castle Rock reef (2 were together one was enormous whilst the other was dwarfted at about 6ft long) the other we encountered was off Agulhas area at Arniston that stole our fish off the float line...thank goodness as it's not difficult to surmise that if there was no fish one of us could have been on the menu and that one we estimated at about 11-12 ft long.

This supports my theory that they move out when pickings are getting lean and are forever following sea food...fish, seals, sealions and even turtles when the cupboard is getting leaner and return back perhaps when the pantry is better stocked again.

Yes, it's the luck of the draw...rather like playing Russian roulette and knowing what I've learnt today rather foolish unless you are getting tired of life. In any event it's not a pleasant way to leave this world...unless a really big machine chows you in half.  But there again when you are young you do rather foolish things. I guess though it's a hassle free departure without messy funerals, burials and cremations...other species like Bull Sharks (Zambesi) are not in the SW Cape but further north and they tend to maim their victims and cause painful slow deaths, loss of blood, shock etc.

Buffalo  Bay  is near Cape Point....very deep water....I can see a diver encountering a Shark there.

When we were surfing at the Corner once, somebody shouted out ‘look at that huge micky fin’ .....and sure enough a big triangular fin was cutting the water. So about 50  of us  set off paddling towards the shark....which just continued motoring along just outside the surf line.

So there were big buggers around in the sixties, but they didn’t bite

As for Miller’s Point....I spent a lot of time fishing there. My father and I caught about 15 Steenbras in half in hour one day on a Spring tide, fishing into the kelp pools. If there was a Shark attack it had to be in a pool or well offshore beyond the kelp which is as thick as the Amazon jungle.

Sounds grim....you get Delhi belly and then the Sharks eat you. But on to more important things, was it a good point break?

Actually Seb I think Buffels Bay is the  one near Knysna. I surfed there once and there is a a point break, with some very clear water in offshore conditions. 

As I recall the guy who was killed there was a German or  Dutch tourist attacked within days of arriving in the country.

Another spot we surfed on that trip was Seal Point near Cape St Francis. A huge wave with a scary paddle out over a shallow reef swept by broken water. Losing a board out there was a distinct possibility and that water looked deep beyond the reef. There must have been sharks.

There were so many shark attacks in the past, especially along the East London to Durban coast

The one surfer that was attacked, was attacked by two separate sharks at the same time..... which at the time, was a very unusual incident

It was at Nahoon Beach, which has had a few attacks in the past

Nahoon Beach

My one mate was attacked by a small shark whilst wading in water which was just above his knees..... it is crazy to see what damage that little shark did to his foot....and we never got to know what shark did it

I'm sure most of you may remember the old wife's tale of the "Submarine" great white shark which supposedly would swim the Cape peninsula, looking for human food.

That tale certainly got some traction over the decades

The "Submarine" was no myth...it and other exceptional size GW's exist all right...it covered False Bay from Gordon's Bay off Harmony, Strand to Macassar Beach in the seventies and then disappeared.

There was a Greek fella from the Strand/Somerset West, Tukkies Tragakis who caught and targeted Great Whites using oil and fuel drums as floats, whole pup seals as bait attached to long lift cable as trace. He caught monsters...saw the pictures in the newspaper often.. Funny you cannot find them anymore because Great Whites are strictly protected and you are not even allowed to fish for them. The feelings are so high about this...it's almost sacrilege to mention it.

The big one we saw at Millers Point (Deep Castle) estimated 18-20 ft with deep girth...that baby could make you disappear in 2 or 3 chomps and could sink a small ski boat quite easily but lucky for us his gastric juices were not running that day and I would be surprised if he was the one that took a Stellenbosch medical student who was spear fishing in the very same reef later on...they never found his body and the old lady in Fish Hoek beach, Tina who also was taken and never found.

They are beautiful and fascinating creatures though.

Moz...that's what I thought, I know Buffelsbaai (Afrikaans) near to Rooikrans,,,there's a ski-boat launch there and dived there quite often but this one is the one south of Knysna (Brenton-on-sea) and there's a lagoon there and a holiday resort. We used surf fish there when we visited my step mom on Leisure Isle.

GW's definitely move around...great travellers and hunters...ice cold oceans and warm oceans it makes no difference unlike some other species.

There are many fishermen tales of shark lengths.  Several unconfirmed reports have talked of 7.0-9.0m great white sharks.  The infamous 6.0-7.0m False Bay white shark, dubbed "The Submarine" has a legend that stretches back to the 1970s.  But what are the facts? 

Undoubtly, large white sharks over 5.0m exist, but probably not close to shore where we are likely to see them.  Recent stomach content analysis of white sharks found that larger white sharks had large squid beaks in their stomachs.  Not seals.  So perhaps these large sharks head for the high seas rather than seal colonies.  "Once white sharks reach a certain size, we don't see them again," says Dyer Island Conservation Trust marine biologist, Oliver Jewell.  "We have many individuals that were close to 5.0m in length, and after a few years they don't come back.  We would like to think they are rather choosing to stay offshore."  DICT zoologist, Michelle Wcisel, takes an evoluntionary approach, "Sharks existed well before marine mammals, so it seems logical to me that their diet is more primordial.  Seals are probably a recent item to their diet in terms of their lineology." 

The largest white shark ever caught and accurately measured in South Africa was 5.9m in length.  This shark was caught off Danger Point of Gansbaai (not too far from our cage diving area!).  The world record white shark so far stands at the 6.8m white shark caught at Malta, Italy.  Yes, the Mediterranean Sea!

Get face to face with the great white shark, just book here and we will show you.
 

"and the old lady in Fish Hoek beach, Tina who also was taken and never found"

I distinctly remember reading this news article at the time, about this old lady.... it was shocking....I think it still said that only her white hat that she was wearing, was floating in the ocean

The submarine still seems to  be some kind of tale seb, but as the article states..... most people have probably seen their own version of "The Submarine"

Submarine

A school mate of mine's grandfather caught a +6m long GW near Gansbaai in 1987. Front page of "Die Burger" at the time. 

Back in 2001 and 2002, I drove from Muhlenberg to Simon's Town a lot. Early mornings. Regularly saw GWs jumping out of the water while feeding on seal and fish I suppose...massive sharks.

In 1998 I was lucky enough to fly around the peninsula a few times. Once to Noordhoek and once to Hermanus. On both trips we saw a few massive sharks just behind the breakers.

It's actually strange that we don't have more attacks in False Bay. These days they use drones to patrol the beaches for sharks and they have a warning system...I'm sure it helps, but still....

Life is a bastard and then you die!

Shark,

An acquaintance of mine was attacked by GW in Port St John's. 

He'd been living there and taking tourists on hikes. He'd end the hike near the beach and then do some spear fishing for a braai. We always told him not to. Nobody even swims at PSJ anymore. That's how frequent the attacks are.

Strangely, the day he had his experience, he was snorkelling with two local dive guides. He'd just jumped in the water when it grabbed him by the leg. 

Here's the cool part. He managed to get it to let go. They pulled him back onto the boat. He didn't lose any limbs and only suffered some tissue and ligament damage on one leg.

Guy was sending tweets from his hospital be that night.

He now walks around with slight limp and a necklace that has a great white tooth hanging on it.

The amount of times he must have gotten laid on the back of that story.

Anyhow, that's one of the only great white attacks I know of in PSJ.

The rest are all bull sharks. 

Year on year I see foreigners turn up for the sardine run. They don't seem to care. Though, I guess further out, the risk decreases.

Have some local Xhosa friends there that grew up surfing. None of them dare go in the water anymore. They've told me stories of seeing their mates get taken, dragged out, start to swim back, get dragged out again...until there's nothing left.

Theory is that local isangomas chucking animal entrails etc, into the water is what brings the sharks. 

I think overfishing is causing them to move into the PSJ river more.

Edit: here's the article

https:// news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Man-escapes-jaws-of-white-shark-in-Port-St-Johns-20150503