A sharking experience

I have always wondered what the real differences were between adrenaline, adventure and extreme sports. I guess many people will have many views, but I am sure a particular sport can change from the one to the other depending the variation in danger elements or risks involved. Let's take a simple sport like swimming. When you do it in a shallow pool, I guess the words adrenaline and adventure never comes to mind. Do it in the open ocean and adventure sounds appropriate. Do it in shark infested water and extreme all of a sudden seems like the best word to describe it.

Last week on the Internet and e-mails a picture of a shark caught off the South African Coast was doing the rounds. An enormous monster weighing in at 700kg with a lenght of 4,3 meters. Because the pictures were taken in Mossel Bay, most people believe that the shark comes from there. The fact is that sharks have been followed swimming from South Africa to Australia and back. I believe most sharks come back after they have tasted one or two Aussies. Nevertheless, these creature are everywhere in our oceans, and they make the crime risks in South Africa look like a Sunday school picnic.  Btw, this one was caught off the Kwa-Zulu coastline.

I have been surfing for many years and I never viewed surfing as a adrenaline or extreme sport. Maybe just because I never had the opportunity to surf the massive waves in Hawaii, or risking my life above corals in Teahupoo. What I do know now is that I have been surfing in waters where these guys are lurking. Not knowing that fact drops the extremity a little, but show anyone the shark before he enters the water and I am pretty sure not many people will take the risk...making even swimming an extreme sports by my definition.

Shark sightings are common in South African waters, with some of the best pictures of breaching sharks taken in False Bay. I have surfed in areas where sharks are quite common, Durban, Wild Coast, Mossel Bay, Nahoon Reef...but I have only witness a fin about once or twice in my life. And I am not even sure if it was a shark or a maybe a dolphin. Maybe I was just lucky, or maybe I believe the riskier the activity the more enjoyable it becomes...and the luckier you get when you live to tell the story. There is a joke going around about the dude sitting in the a bar claiming that he made a good agreement with the sharks. The sharks will never go into the bar if he will never go into the water. I don't think I am prepared to make that sacrifice just yet. Hope to see you (and not the sharks) in the water soon...