By Douglas Carew
A giant great white shark shot out of the water "like a rocket" and tried to snatch a Kalk Bay fisherman off a fishing boat anchored off Strandfontein Beach this week.
The leaping shark brushed Mogamat Hendricks's shoulder and its tail slammed into the boat with a sickening thud before it disappeared into the sea.
False Bay Great Whites are known to breach, but an attempt to snatch a fisherman off a boat is unheard of.
'It shot out of the water like a rocket and all I saw was an eye'
Four fishermen and two teenage sisters from Johannesburg on a holiday outing were in the fishing boat Sea Breeze between Seal Island and the tidal pool at Strandfontein Pavilion on Friday night when the Great White breached.
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They had been listening to the radio and chatting on a calm night under the faint light of the new moon.
"It shot out of the water like a rocket and all I saw was an eye," said Hendricks. He said he dived for his life towards the fish hold when he felt the shark brush his right shoulder.
"I think the skipper got more of a fright than I did because he saw more than I saw. It was big, big, big. Every time I think about it I get a cold shiver," added Hendricks, who has been fishing the waters of False Bay for longer than he can remember.
Skipper David Miller, who had been sitting a couple of metres away from Hendricks, said the shark landed on the starboard side of the boat's stern, twisted and hit the water. "It then gave the boat a whack with its tail and disappeared."
'I said that’s the kind of bullshit you only see in movies' The impact woke the girls, Dani and Mikaila Thurgood, who had been sleeping in the cabin. "The boat was rocking and rolling and we were all wet. I told the girls we are f**king off right now," Miller said.
The girls' father, David Thurgood, said: "I was sitting in the middle of the boat facing the stern. I heard something in the water and saw a big, grey shape come up.
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