Kayak Fishing Adventures on Big Water’s Edge

Great white shark terrifies surprised spearfisherman

<TIME date="2015-09-29">September 29, 2015</TIME> by David Strege

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Great white shark terrified a spearfisherman, appearing out of nowhere.

A spearfisherman casually cruising the ocean floor became instantly terrified when a great white shark suddenly
appeared by his side out of nowhere, prompting the diver to scream and hurriedly kick to the surface. Richard
Leonard was diving with friends off Arinston, Cape Town, South Africa, when the dangerous encounter occurred
at a depth of 62 feet.

“When I leveled out on the bottom, I looked first to my right, and then as I looked to my left the great white
shark was right next to me,” Leonard told GrindTV in an email via Jukin Media. “That could quite easily been the
end of me.”

But the great white shark wasn’t done with him just yet:

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Upon first seeing the great white shark, Leonard managed to prod it with his spear. “Before he turned
his nose he was only an arm’s length away from my head,” Richard explained. “He seemed not to like
my defensive prod too much, sped off, made a sharp turn, dropped his pectoral fins (very aggressive
behavior), made a sharp 180-degree turn and came straight for me.

“At this point the situation turned from a close encounter to life threatening. The shark was clearly
now in attack mode. I had to show some dominance back to him to avoid being bitten. I thrust my
spear gun forward with all my might and managed to give him a good prod causing him to veer off
again, and [it] disappeared into the gloom. At this point I was out of air and made my ascent as fast
as I could, trying not to display any signs of panic.”

Once at the surface, Leonard warned the others, “Look out for the white! Look out for the white.” He
looked back down into the water and saw the great white shark swimming under his feet. Fortunately,
he was out of the water seconds later. The boat driver, Rene Nel, raced over to pick up Leonard and
another diver. But Francois Smuts was still in the water.

“Where is Francois?” Nel asked.
“Go fetch Francois,” Leonard repied. “Look there he is at the buoy…at the buoy.”
They quickly plucked Francois out of the water, too, and Leonard began telling them about what happened.
“Did you see, it almost ate me,” Leonard says in the video from the safe confines of the boat, according to Jukin. “Joh! It was right there next to me, so I pushed it away with my gun…Boys, he nearly ate me.”
Indeed, the close encounter could’ve very well ended quite differently.

Read more at http://www.grindtv.com/fishing/great...yoFfEZMTiDy.99