North Shore Times (New Zealand)
TV presenter fights off shark attack
A New Zealand TV presenter felt his kayak shaking violently near Takapuna beach and looked down to see the almost two-metre long body of a shark attacking it.
David Lomas, presenter of TV3’s Lost & Found, was paddling his kayak near the popular beach on Saturday a few minutes before 9am when it started shuddering and rocking rapidly from side to side.
Lomas looked down to see the silvery grey body of a shark angling up towards the bottom of his boat.
Without skipping a beat Lomas aimed his paddle towards the body of the shark and gave it a hard thump.
‘‘It moved and I moved.’’
‘‘If you’ve got a shark down there attacking your boat what would you do?
‘‘There’s no one operating up that way or doing anything, I mean there’s virtually no one in the water anyway.’’
Readings from Lomas’ GPS tracker indicate the encounter likely lasted around two minutes.
Lomas says the rocking and thumping stopped and started a number of times and he first thought he had hit some rocks. ‘‘I was getting quite kind of freaked just by the shaking, then when I saw the shark I was really really freaked.’’
After thumping the shark with his paddle Lomas paddled slowly to the Takapuna boat ramp wary of splashes attracting the shark’s attention.
Lomas thinks the shark might have been trying to get its teeth around the base of his kayak and credits it’s hard rounded hull for his swift escape.
The TV presenter and journalist said he had been kayaking in the area for 30 years and even swam there around three times a week during summer. He had never seen a shark in the Hauraki Gulf before and wouldn’t have the slightest hesitation returning to the area to swim or kayak again.
‘‘It’s the first time I’ve seen a shark while paddling so there is a pretty good chance I won’t see another in my lifetime.’’
Great white shark sightings in the Hauraki Gulf have made a splash on social media in March. Marine scientist and shark expert Clinton Duffy said at the time that great white sightings are ‘‘quite a regular thing’’ in the Hauraki Gulf, but ‘‘most people are generally pretty bad at identifying sharks’’. Duffy said the great whites usually spotted in the Hauraki Gulf are predominantly juveniles up to three metres long.