Three Victor Harbor fishing mates had a ?euphoric? experience when a large great white shark swam up close to their fishing boat several kilometres off of the Waitpinga coast.
Victor?s Anthony Rowland was fishing with surfing mates Philippe and Christophe Didelot, both of Middleton, on a calm afternoon on Tuesday, March 1.
?It was so euphoric, the shark was so calm and moved so slowly, so we had no fear of it,? Anthony said. ?We estimated the shark was about 12 feet long. The boat is 17 feet and it was only a bit smaller than that, so 12 feet was a conservative guess.
?It seemed calm when it was swimming and you could tell it wasn?t stalking us and just having a close look. It was pretty humbling.
?It was checking us out as much as we were to it.?
The shark hung around the boat for at least 15 minutes.
Anthony said the shark?s behaviour was non-threatening and he was comfortable using his hand to hold his GoPro camera underwater, as close as half a metre to the shark.
?You can?t tell how close the camera is to the shark because of the fish eye effect of the camera,? he said.
?I was really close to it, and Philippe was holding on to the back of my shirt.?
The three fishermen are avid local surfers who regularly surf at Waitpinga and Parsons beaches, about 16km south west of Victor Harbor. Anthony estimated they were up to about 10 kilometres directly out to sea from Waitpinga.
?I had been surfing Waits all morning that day, from 9am to noon.
?We went fishing in the afternoon and spotted the shark late in the evening.
?It was a bit of a reality check, seeing one that big. What I found incredible was how hard it was to see the shark from just above the water level. So if you were on a board, you would have no chance of seeing it.
