Victim to take plunge despite shark attack
Barry Watkins’ close encounter with a great white shark has left him with unfinished business.
He was attacked by a 4.2-metrelong shark at St Clair in Dunedin as a 16-year-old in March 1971.
‘‘[The shark] had three or four goes at me and during the last one he climbed right up on my board and was staring straight at me.
‘‘I just gave myself up for dead . . . coming out the other end was something I didn’t think would happen.’’
The encounter left Watkins with a broken surfboard, a large leg gash requiring 90 stitches and a lifelong fear of surfing in Dunedin waters.
‘‘I can surf anywhere in the world . . . but I can’t back to St Clair/St Kilda. I just get too paranoid,’’ the
63-year-old said.
Watkins will soon tackle his fear head-on with a cage diving trip with the fish at Stewart Island in early February.
He was driven by a bucket list he made after suffering a stroke last year.
‘‘I have been wanting to do this for years and years.’’
A previous shark dive experience in Adelaide ended with a shark ‘‘no show’’, but that is unlikely to happen in the waters off Stewart Island.
The company, Shark Dive NZ, had been having a busy season with large sharks reported in the area, he said.
‘‘Not many of us that have survived get a chance to do something like this.’’
Watkins, who now lives in Horowhenua and continues to surf, said he was looking forward to ‘‘seeing them in their element doing their thing’’.
‘‘That are so fascinating, but I am just so thankful the cage is between them and me.’’
In the space of seven years, there were five great white attacks – three fatal – off the Dunedin coast.
Between 1964 and 1966, three men were killed. The last of those was Graeme Hitt, 24, who died at Aramoana on September 15, 1968.
Dunedin removed its shark nets in 2011, with the council citing cost and effectiveness as a factor.