15 January 2007

Close encouters of the shark kind

Went fishing in the Hauraki Gulf on Sunday, in the middle of Browns, Motutapu and Motuihe islands (the pronounciation gets there - eventually!).

Caught 2 baby shark, 1.5 metres long, totally unexpected! Real fighters, I'm not sure what species they were, but for some reason, holding them thrashing in your hands on the surface whilst trying to remove a hook is a lot scarier that diving with much bigger ones!

Both were safely returned to the depths...

Which reminds me, for my birthday last year I was bought a dive in the Kelly Tarlton shark tank (local aquarium). There are several very large stingray, bronze whaler, 7-gill and a wobbegong (Australian) shark.

At one point in the dive, I had a large ray under me, and another above me. The water is only 3m deep. Ironically, this was the day before Steve Irwin died...

2 comments:

Chris-P said...

Rob,

Glad the two 1.5m fellas went back into the sea. We watched a Jacques Custard video a while ago in which his crew set about killing sharks for feasting on the dead carcass of a whale , er, a whale that Jacques and his merry men had killed by accident! Strange logic, but then it was a vintage film!

Kiwi Rob said...

Reminds me of old Star Trek episodes, Kirk turns up at a new planet, decides he doesn't like the locals or their style of government, kills a lot of the locals, and installs a democracy!

Hmmm, sounds strangly familiar for some reason...