Sharks send swimmers running
Swimming at O¯ hope near cruising sharks gets your heart racing, says holidaymaker
Rotorua man Mark Chapman admits a swim back to shore knowing there were a couple of sharks near Ohope ¯ Beach “got the heart rate going”.
He is from one of three Bay families who have shark tales from their O¯ hope holidays.
Despite several sightings, experts in the area say the sharks, which were either bronze whaler or thresher sharks, did not usually attack people.
Chapman, a John Paul College teacher, was swimming at O¯ hope on Thursday afternoon last week past the breakers with a family friend and her teenage son when they noticed they weren’t the only ones in the water.
“We were way out, just swimming and catching the waves, but little did we know they [the lifeguards] were trying to whistle us back. There was a big line of people on the beach watching.”
He said it was unnerving not knowing exactly where the sharks were as he was catching waves back in. “It got the heart rate going . . . definitely made me think twice about going back in. And it’s a good story to tell.”
But Chapman wasn’t put off for long. He said the lifeguards, who work on the beach outside the O¯ hope Beach Top 10 Holiday Park, did an awesome job and they always felt safe.
“They are just bronze whalers and are there to feed on the fish. It’s easy to say now that I’m back on land but, hey, I guess a shark is a shark.”
Earlier the same day Stacey Birch, also from Rotorua, spotted a shark in the shallows when she took her children, aged 8 and 5, swimming outside the holiday park.
She said the lifeguards hadn’t started by then and there weren’t many people around.
She said she wasn’t too surprised as she’d seen sharks there every year since they started holidaying there four years ago.
“It’s their home and as long as you don’t poke and prod them, they aren’t going to hurt you.”
She said her children got back into the breakers after half an hour.
The Jarmey family from Rotorua went to O¯ hope on Saturday and spotted a shark in the shallows closer to the main beach after a fisherman had rinsed out his bucket.
Erin Jarmey said she and husband Hayden were taking their children Finlay, 6, and Leroy, 4, into the water when people started yelling not to go in because of a shark.
Jarmey said everyone in the area was annoyed with the fisherman.
Carla Reid from Whakata¯ne Surf This is what a bronze whaler shark looks like. Life Saving Club said there had been no more shark sightings than usual.
“This is the ocean and sharks are always going to be a part of it. We have to respect them when we go in the water because it’s their home. They are pretty small and they aren’t aggressive.”
O¯ hope Beach Top 10 Holiday Park general manager Mark Inman said when the water was warmer there tended to be the odd shark around looking for bait fish.
He said it was important beach users swam between the flags so lifeguards could keep an eye on them.
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