Panhandle Sharks

[Riley Smith]

I don't know if you've heard of the Florida shark attacks because I have absolutely no idea what the news reports anymore. My son was in Panama City Beach and all the beaches were closed. Teenager lost a right leg and a left hand that I know of. I've seen many videos of large sharks close in on the beaches. Hammerhead and bull sharks in close catching rays I think. It's that time but I've been going down there all my life and have never seen a shark, even from a balcony perch 15 stories high.

[Wolverine]

The 1st day of the FL120, on the way to Ft. McCree, I dropped the hook off Ft. Pickens for lunch. As I sat eating a 4' shark swam by. 1st shark I've ever seen in the wild.

[Krusen]

  Years ago, after a couple of east coast Florida shark attacks, there was a proposal to establish an airborne shark patrol and clear the beach whenever a shark was seen.

The air tour pilots commented that the beaches would be completely closed, as they pointed out sharks to their passengers on every flight.

The proposal was dropped.

Flying my small plane along the beach if the light is right for seeing into the water, not reflected sky, I often see sharks, including one that was half the wing span of our Cessna Skyhawk 4 seater, measured by flying the shadow across it.  The shark was within 100 feet of the beach, maybe 5 or 6 feet deep.

[Charles Brennan]

Riley, Your post: " . . . . I have absolutely no idea what the news reports anymore.  My son was in Panama City Beach and all the beaches were closed. Teenager lost a right leg and a left hand that I know of."
Is truer than you know.  Nobody else knows, either.   

The Facts (not rumors) are:
1) All the shark attacks were on females.
2) A 45 year old woman was attacked and initial reports were that she lost her hand; later reports reported the loss of her lower left arm.  (Sound like more than a left hand, to me.)
3) The other two victims, 15 and 17 were also female.
4) All three attacks were in waist-deep water.
5) One was listed in critical condition with severe injuries to her upper and lower extremities.
6) The other girl was taken to Ascension Bay Medical Center in Panama City Beach. She was in stable condition with flesh wounds to her lower right extremity.  (Hasn't lost the right leg, yet.)

We all know that party game  "Chinese whispers" or "Telephone" in which messages are whispered from person to person and then the original and final messages are compared.
They are NEVER the same and neither are most initial accounts of disaster.

As to never seeing a shark, in all the times you've been there, I'm not surprised.
I used to take my family to the beach off John U. Lloyd State Park between Dania Beach and Port Everglades.
As soon as the sunshade umbrellas, blankets and coolers were deployed, I would take my scuba gear and swim out to Barracuda Reef, not quite a mile off-shore.  When I got low on air and had to return to shore, I found it easier to swim in underwater, rather than fight the waves and surf coming back in.  It was amusing to see all the bathers and tourists with small Barracuda, Nurse sharks, small Bull sharks and Black Tip Reef sharks, swimming in and around and sometimes through their legs.
Sometimes I was greatly tempted to surface and ask them if they knew what was under their feet. 
Even knowing how to spot them underwater, they are sometimes difficult to see.

The other problem people have, is not knowing the arithmetic behind shark movements.
When they are not really interested and are just moseying around, they travel about 1½ mph.
Like between beach goers legs.
Moving from point A to point B, they cruise at around 5 mph and accelerate for attacks, to roughly 12 mph.
Here's the "gotcha": They can accelerate for brief periods to 35 - 60 mph, depending on the species.

Let's take the LOW end: 35 mph.  Another way to think of it is 50 feet per second.
(High end is 60 mph or 88 feet per second.)
Take a 50 -100 foot water visibility kind of day, like Panama City typically enjoys.
You have all of ONE or TWO SECONDS     to notice it, between when the shark accelerates and when it strikes.

Which is why anytime I could SEE a shark, I wasn't worried.  He had already made up his mind not to eat me, a few seconds ago.  Any shark that wants to attack, will be gone with a few bucks worth of meat offa me, before I knew anything about it.   

Which is what undoubtedly happened to those three victims, on June 7th.

What frosts me from the news reports are: "Shark-infested waters."   
Hey! The sharks LIVE there!! Technically, those are "people-infested waters"! 

Rant over,
Charles Brennan

[Riley Smith]

We had the girls down there somewhere...maybe Orange Beach, which is on the border of FL, and swam all day. I'm not a big fan of swimming in the ocean mainly because it is too cold for my liking but kids have no thermostat. Well, it got later and the sun was sinking and so my wife called the girls out of the water. Feeding time. They hadn't got on the beach good when SOMETHING came zipping through all the kids in the water and right by a guy snorkeling. I don't know what it was but CB you're not even stretching it even a little. I saw whatever it was but it was only a blur. (Don't really think it was a shark, maybe a barracuda). This time of the year, rays come in close on the beaches and the sharks feed on them.

[Charles Brennan]

Kruse'n, Off Key Biscayne, by the Cape Florida lighthouse is a sand-bar, roughly 100 yards from the beach.
At low tide you can walk to it and at high tide, you can easily swim it.
Fly over that sand bar in a light aircraft and you can see NUMEROUS (Numerous: more than dozens!) sharks cruising back and forth, off that sand bar.  It's amusing (from the air) seeing the macho beach-goers providing an unwitting buffet to the shark populace.    By estimating length based on 6 foot swimmers lounging on the sand bar, the average shark is 6 to 8 feet, with dozens of four-foot youngsters and occasional 10 -12 foot Mac Daddy's.

And a story:
Was diving by myself for lobster, one lobster season.
(Yeah, yeah. I know. But one day, I looked around at all my dive buddies, and realized I had helped each and every one of them out of tight situations and yet, none of them had ever helped ME!  I make no apologies for my reckless behavior; always figured: It's MY Life, it's MY Rules.)
Been getting away with it, since 1966.
Because I KNOW that help will never be forthcoming, I am always a little more cautious.

Like listening intently for the Silence. 
It's always noisy down there; shrimp clicking, crabs popping, fish crunching on coral (and occasionally, each other) so when it suddenly STOPS, you take notice.
Almost always means an Apex Predator.

I noted the Silence, right about the time a torpedo-shape with a huge fin shadow went directly over my body.
WHOA!!    Three or four times as long as ME!! 
Then another shadow passed by off to my right,  not as long, but also moving swiftly.
Gulping into my regulator, I steeled myself to roll over and look up.   

It was a sailboat hull.   
The late afternoon sun, the clear waters and the heeling angles all conspired to mimic the outline of humongous sharks.
I surfaced and was in even more danger, than a shark attack! 
I was in the middle of  sailboat race and everybody was coming at me, from every direction!
I quickly descended and decided to navigate underwater, back to my anchored sailboat.
(Which was right in everybody's way.)

True story,
Charles Brennan

[Norm L.]

Charles, it was probably good that you were under water. If you were on your boat you would hear what they are calling you for having your boat in their private part of the coastline.

[Riley Smith]

I stated I'd never seen a shark down there but what I HAVE seen are rays. LOTS OF RAYS. And they're bait.

[Frank B.]

In Mexico Beach, FL, there used to be a long pier before H. Michael.  Every night there would be a number of fishermen who specifically were fishing for sharks.  They often would catch them.  I've seen them near shore but just on rare occasions. But you know they are there.

I've seen many more on the Mississippi Gulf coast than in FL.  If you like black tips you can almost always catch them off the west end of Ship Island at the pass.  A very large but dead Hammerhead snagged while fishing at the mouth of the canal that was cut into the north side of Cat island.  And on the south side of Cat it is always a bit disarming to have a redfish hooked, reeling it in while wade fishing and have a shark snatch it when it is about ten foot from me.  My FIL used to throw a cast net while wading off the beach, carrying his sack of caught mullet while doing so.  Brave man.

Came eyeball to eyeball with one while diving in the sea of Abaco, Bahamas. Obviously curious rather than hungry.

[Timm R Oday25]

I've been fortunate to have spent a fair amount of time in the company of sharks .You cannot view this attachment.You cannot view this attachment.
Only in the rarest of occasions have I ever felt uneasy .
 Charles makes a lot of sense when he states.."
If the shark had wanted to taste you, it would already be too late "

[Brian N.]

Last year my older son and I went fishing just off the coast of Long Island and we could see lots of people on the beach. No matter where the boat was positioned (Big Party Boat) within minutes several sharks (3-4 feet plus) circled the boat. Captain had us pull the lines several times and moved a few hundred yards, but like a bad horror movie the sharks came back. Not exactly "Jaws" but it makes you wonder.