Durban - A swim on a reef off Port St John’s turned into a life-and-death battle for a diver who fought off a great white shark that had his foot in its jaws at the weekend.
“I felt the bite, but had to turn around and look before I realised it was a shark,” said Mathieu Dasnois.
Speaking to the Daily News from an uMthatha hospital, the 29-year-old said he poked the shark in the eye with his left thumb and it let go, only to come back and maul him for a second and then a third time as he punched and pushed at it in an attempt to get away.
The attack happened metres from a boat with a group of tourists on board. They watched in horror as the shark circled back to move in on Dasnois again – and again.
Craig Lambinon, of the National Sea Rescue Institute, said that the dorsal fin of a 3.5 to 4m great white was seen approaching as Dasnois made his second dive at Sugarloaf Rock, a beach in the Eastern Cape town, on Saturday.
Dasnois, a freelance photographer and the son of former Cape Times editor Alide Dasnois, moved to Port St Johns four months ago to work as a tour guide.
“It was a beautiful day and the water was clear enough that I felt safe,” he said.
He had joined NSRI volunteers Rob Nettleton and Debbie Smith who were taking a small group of tourists on a sightseeing trip by boat.
“Having recently purchased new dive equipment, Mathieu, an avid and well known spearfisherman, had asked skipper Nettleton if, while out on the water, he could take a quick dip to test his new equipment,” said the NSRI.
They were in 4m deep water at about 1.30pm when Dasnois went over the side. He was about 20m from the boat when attacked.
The skipper immediately turned the boat and went to his aid. Before they could get him on board, the shark breached from under Dasnois, clamped onto his foot and attempted to drag him away from the boat.
“I managed to free my foot and was pulled onto the boat,” he said.
A bleeding Dasnois was rushed to a clinic then transferred to the hospital where he the wounds on his leg and hand were stitched. He said his instinct to fight must have stopped the shark from biting off chunks of flesh. “I’m very lucky, doctors say I will make a full recovery,” he said.
Last year, Riedrich Burgstaller, a retired 66-year-old Austrian politician in Port St John’s, was the eighth person to be killed there by sharks in as many years.
In recent years only one other person survived an attack, at the infamous yet popular Second Beach.
Most of these attacks have been by bull sharks.
Daily News