Silky Shark Attack

divers to grow increasingly over-confident when encountering sharks.

Indeed, as more and more divers feed various species of reef shark

on tropical reefs, with only the rarest of mishaps, a cavalier

tendency has slowly, but imperceptibly gained ground: because

some species of shark can, under certain conditions, be relatively

safely encountered, there is a growing assumption that many, if

not all sharks can be approached/fed/photographed underwater without

risk. However the only way to learn what can and cannot be done

is trial and error – and error, when dealing with sharks, can

tropical coral reefs and is the subject of this salutary tale

is the silky shark Carcharhinus falciformis. The silky is fairly

easy to identify underwater: it is a relatively thin-bodied shark

with no conspicuous fin markings. The head, when viewed from the

side, comes to a sharp point. The first dorsal fin, located well

behind the pectoral fins, tilts backwards and rises to a rounded

apex. The silky – so-named for the smoothness of its skin (thanks

to the small dermal denticle therein) is an open-water shark that

more typically dwells in deep water well away from shore or reef.

The impression one gets on seeing a silky shark is that of effortless

manoeuvrability and stunning speed. But danger? Not especially.

The king of tropical open water sharks is considered to be the

oceanic whitetip Carcharhinus longimanus. This heavily-built,

blunt-headed thug is thought to be far more dangerous than the

elegant silky. Perhaps it is. Perhaps if it had been oceanic whitetips

that I had been attempting to photograph on that fateful late-afternoon

On offshore coral reefs an occasional silky might swim up for

a close approach, perhaps a very close approach, and then glide

into the background, never quite disappearing, never coming in

quite as close again. Silkies I have met in open water have been

generally well-behaved: more than impressive to look at, but not

all that aggressive. I was shown a video a diver shot on a night

dive in the Red Sea in which a silky did indeed make several aggressive

approaches. I presumed this was either because the diver had rolled

into the water on top of the shark and startled it, or because

the shark was feeding at the time. Nevertheless, apart from this

one exception, I did not think that the silky should be placed

particularly high on the list when it comes to dangerous sharks.

After all, so the old theory goes, some sharks – like the oceanic

whitetip, the bull shark, the tiger shark and the great white

– have teeth designed to bite chunks out of large prey while other

sharks – including the silky – are better adapted to catch smaller

fishes that they can swallow whole. It is therefore thought to

cleaned out of sharks by unauthorised fishing. This summer, thankfully,

the grey reef sharks have returned in force. But so, curiously,

have a number of silky sharks. A French film crew had filmed them

the week before we arrived and the divers on the previous Poseidon’s

Quest charter had reported several large silky sharks appearing

off the end of the reef late in the afternoon. The silkies had

approached closely and been photographed but had not appeared

appeared. But then, at the very end of the dive, as everyone was

preparing to clamber into the RIBs, the silkies arrived, their

supple bronze forms weaving fearlessly between the divers in the

gloomy late afternoon light. There was a small shark of perhaps

5 ft in length, another of 6 ft, another long thin one of about

7 ft and finally a big, heavily built old warrior of 8 ft or more.

The largest of the sharks would sweep up towards the surface to

investigate the divers and as it did so all the rainbow runners

in the vicinity would swarm around the great beating tail of the

shark: perhaps they were none too fond of this big old silky and

were massing around its tail for safety: it could not get to them

there. Curiously though, some of the rainbow runners would rub

themselves against the hide of the shark. This strange behaviour

has been observed before and another explanation might be that

the rainbow runners use the hide of the largest, least manoeuvrable,

shark to dislodge parasites from their bodies. Whatever the explanation,

the other schools of fishes on the reef were clearly unnerved

by the approach of this impressive predator: swarms of plankton-feeding

fusiliers darted back and forth en masse and a dozen or so dog-tooth

tuna, usually seen swimming in the loosest of groups, swam past

the front of the coral wall densely packed together as if expecting

time like the present. Grabbing my Nikonos and 15mm lens, I asked

to be taken back to the point. I expected the sharks to come in

close as they had done before, and I instructed Tony, the RIB

the inflatable. Fitting on my mask I mused to myself that I was

breaking several of my own safety rules. I was swimming with sharks

when there were dolphins present – the sharks can mistake you

for an injured dolphin. I was swimming with large, open-water

sharks on my own (no one had volunteered to come with me!) and

I was swimming with sharks as dusk approached – and many species

of shark are crepuscular in their feeding habits. But then the

silkies might be gone tomorrow and anyway I could always jump

smallest silky swooped past me. I was taken aback at its new-found

pace. But then it was only an over-excited youngster. I looked

below into the gloom and gulped. The two largest sharks were powering

up from below towards me at the same alarmingly rapid pace. My

instincts shrieked danger. At the last moment they stopped right

in front of me. I nervously took a blurred shot as I tried to

convince myself that they would calm down, circle, return to the

gloom and circle again. But they didn’t retreat an inch. Instead

their heads were sweeping from side to side as they worried their

way ever closer. I decided I needed to gain some respect and kicked

the bigger one in the head with my fin. It shuddered, spun in

an angry circle and immediately returned to its original position

hovering inches from my fins, twitching and trembling in a mass

of nervous energy. I kicked it again and it did not even bother

to react. I kicked the second shark with my other fin and it was

similarly unimpressed. I could hear the engine of the inflatable

and judged it to be twenty or thirty metres away. I waved my free

arm in the air, hoping Tony would recognise my alarm signal and

race over to me. The sharks hovered, shuddered and twitched, working

their way towards me, forcing me to back-pedal. I swam towards

the reef crest, planning to swim onto the top of the reef – where

the water is about a metre and a half deep, and signal and yell

to be collected. The sharks would surely not follow. But follow

they did, each positioned immediately behind a fin. I swam on

my back so that I could keep an eye on both sharks and, out of

some deep sense of fatalistic obstinacy, fired off a few frantic

shots as I retreated over the top of the reef. Now I was 5m from

the reef crest, now 10m, and the sharks were glued to me, contemptuously

ignoring my repeated kicks to their snouts. Disaster was surely

only seconds away. My only hope was to get back to the RIB: the

further I was driven over the shallow top of the reef, the further

I was from safety and yet if I stopped retreating the only thing

left for the sharks to do was bite: at least if I kept swimming

they would have to swim with me. I felt I was being tested: they

were trying to find out what I could do to protect myself, what

elaborate defences I had evolved from millions of years of life

in the sea. Would I suddenly forge off into the distance with

a spectacular burst of speed? Was I covered in venomous razor-sharp

spines that would pierce their throats? Surely I had more to offer

than a few pathetic kicks with my fins? They had called my bluff

and were discovering my defencelessness. Although I knew I must

get back to the RIB, fast, I was being forced to retreat ever

further from safety. Swimming on my back, waving my free arm in

the air, I hoped against hope that Tony in the RIB would see my

call for help. I did not dare take my eyes off the sharks to see

where the RIB was: they were too close, too poised, too likely

to switch from aggressive investigation to outright attack. I

instantly dismissed the idea of drawing my knife and using it

as a weapon as a childish fantasy and anyway that would mean having

to put my arm down to my leg and at least at present the sharks

seemed mesmerised by my beating fins. If they were going to chew

alongside, fearlessly watching me with its yellow eye. I clunked

the shark on the snout with the butt of my Nikonos. It ignored

this puny blow and continued to glide parallel, watching, wondering

at how easily it had penetrated my defences. I was finished. One

blur of the broad head and the inevitable would happen. The repertoire

of the reef. The sharks, distracted, retreated a little. It was

the first moment of doubt, of distraction, of hesitation that

had registered in the silkies since I had re-entered the water.

That moment’s hesitation saved me: the noisy arrival of the inflatable

had broken the pitiless, prehistoric spell that bonds hunter to

hunted. The sharks backed off enough to allow me to turn and swim

this? Our ignorance about sharks and their behaviour in the wild

is all but total. I had glimpsed how rapidly the rules can change,

how irrelevant everything I thought I knew could instantly become.

Most sharks are not dangerous most of the time. But dusk is a

special time. And I only just got away with it on this occasion

– more sober, more respectful, more daunted than before. And with