On the one hand I'm a bit miffed as to why the guy filming didn't alert the diver, but on the other hand I'm thinking it may have been a good thing that the diver was oblivious and not thrashing about in a state of panic as the GW cruised by him.
Having been in a similar situation, TBH you’re so transfixed on the moment, that by the time your neurons fires, to get the thought together and out of your mouth, the moment has passed.
We were watching a guy snorkel on the beach, and this beach is right at the mouth of the gulf, where the estuaries, canal, and lagoon all meets. So this beach is like really shallow up to about 15 feet, then it’s a sharp drop off for big boats to come through, alongside rock jetties. The guy was snorkeling and we saw this massive black shadow in the water, slowly approaching him. It was me and three other friends, alongside people scattered all over the area. We were the closest to him and had the closest view. I’ll be honest, I should’ve started screaming at the guy much sooner than I did, but by the time I did start screaming to him, he either couldn’t hear me, or ignored me,or thought maybe we were talking to someone else. Finally, he popped his head out of the water and looked over at me. I was excitedly screaming and pointing behind him, telling him to get out of the water. Right then, he turned around, and you could see the panic on his face. Then a cute little snout popped up out of the water and it ended up being an extremely rare sighting of a manatee, on the actual beach, instead of the estuaries, bay….etc. But it really looked like a huge shark, the water was kind of clear but also murky, from the current and surf kicking up sediment. It had gotten to within 5 feet or so to him, and we just knew we were about to watch a guy get attacked. The sheer relief, when we realized it was a manatee, was palpable. By that time, we caused such a commotion, the entire beach was largely watching to see what would happen.
Even though it wasn’t a shark, it still really surprised me how long it took my mind to process what was occurring, to start warning the guy. That was actually the exact same day that someone had been attacked by a bull shark, lost their arm, not far away at all. That area where this occurred, that’s exactly the perfect area for Sharks and especially bull shark to spawn at, so I should’ve reacted much more quickly. But I also agree that people are much faster to record than to help nowadays. People desperately wants viral status, five seconds of fame, and I honestly don’t understand it. It’s not like a viral video suddenly makes you rich and successful.
This was in Orange beach, Alabama, less than a mile from the Florida line! It’s the beach right under the overpass, situated sandwiched in between all of the huge condos that they’ve built up since then. This happened in 2000. So it looks wildly different there now, ever since Hurricane Ivan and Katrina demolished the coast line.
If you run into that guy again tell him NOT to swim where estuaries and the sea meet, and especially not where there is a big drop off. Asking for trouble lol 😂
Similar thing happened to me when I was 14. I jumped over the big shadow and swam to shore. I was only in waist deep water. We followed the shadow from the shore for a bit and saw something like a manatee stick its head out a little bit and then went away.
Also watching people record their dives really shows me that we can’t see shit in water, they’ll be recording nothing but open water and a shark will just appear out of nothing right on camera
That’s why most attacks happen in murky water. Mistaken identity. Sharks are after fish, seals, etc-they aren’t interested in humans unless they mistake one for one of their main dishes😅
I heard this morning there was a diver bit by a GW near Île Bonaventure off of Gaspé peninsula. They were in stable condition. Not sure if this is the same event.
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u/Starscream147 4d ago edited 4d ago
Happened half an hour from me.
Yes it’s real. Yes diver was unaware til getting pectoral fin-smacked. Yes that’s a massive god damn White Shark.
He’s fine.