Silky Shark Attack

There has been a general trend, over the last decade or so, for
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
lead to disastrous results.

An example of a shark that is occasionally encountered on off-shore
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
I would not be writing this article now.

I have encountered silky sharks on a few occasions in the past.
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
be unlikely that they would attempt to tackle anything large.

Last summer Sha’ab Rumi reef in the Sudanese Red Sea was virtually
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
threatening to the divers.

We arrived at the reef in mid afternoon and did our dive. No silkies
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
trouble.

I desperately wanted to photograph them and felt there was no
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
operator, to stay nearby just in case I had to make a rapid exit.

As we reached the point a group of bottlenose dolphins swam around
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
back in the RIB if things got out of hand.

As I slipped into the gloomy water at the edge of the reef the
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
on anything let it be my fins.

Then the larger shark surged past my left fin and was effortlessly
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 possibilities had been exhausted.

Then I heard the roar of the inflatable as it sped up to the side
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
for the boat.

What lessons did I learn? What lessons should others learn from
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
more grey hairs.