Nervous wreck around bull sharks

ONE of my favourite pastimes is snorkelling.

I’ve always been a bit of a wimp, fearing that chance meeting with sharkie, but more recently, at the derision of my son Tom, I‘ ve managed to muster up a bit more courage.

So I’ve dipped my toe into the water in the Whitsundays not too far from where two women were attacked recently.

Tom is a keen spearfishing enthusiast. My family has been the recipient of his catches including superb eating coral trout.

It never ceases to amaze, and worry me, though, when Tom goes bluewater spearing for species such as the tuna and mackerel, setting up reflectors in the water and berleying with bait to attract the fish.

That, to me, is madness but evidently it is relatively common practice.

I’ve done too much line fishing to know what is out there.

On recent trips into Cleveland Bay and off Hinchinbrook Island I seem to have become, much to my annoyance, something of shark specialist.

No one wants to catch sharks unless you enjoy trying to haul in something very large and you are using rope or cable for line.

My unwanted quarry has been large hammerhead and bull sharks. You can’t eat these fish although I once read, in one of my favourite books Minerva Reef, that shipwrecked Tongans survived an incredible 105 days partly by eating shark livers to give them some of the essential minerals they needed to survive.

Of the sharks I have caught, it is the bull shark that worries me most.

Despite all the tigers Queensland Fisheries Patrol have caught on drum lines at Cid Harbour in the Whitsundays after the attacks on the two women, and the suggestion a tiger was involved, I wouldn’t mind betting bull sharks were the culprits.

Even Tom is wary of them. They seem to be territorial and, what’s more, they are prevalent around Hinchinbrook Island.

Divers have been attacked there in recent times.

So I keep out of the water there and wait for news of their capture on drum lines.