I contacted Dave and received permission to share his encounter from last Friday in this forum.
Where do I start? Diving for wsb...
Postby Dave Freeman » 18 May 2014
Was out with some buddies looking for some wsb. Conditions were fair almost the perfect amount of haze for wsb, but enough vis to see them from a good distance. I worked the outside edge with my buddies trailing me and the bed was pretty lifeless besides many juvenile calicos. Ran into some bait here and there but nothing really promising. After about an hour I had worked the entire edge of the portion of the bed we were diving and decided to head into a really dense area. I had kicked in maybe two or three dives into the thick kelp. One of which I had slipped down and laid at the bottom to see if anything would pass me up in the lower murk. This planted me pretty deep into the bed.
Then I had a dive I'll never forget. I had dove down to about 25-30ft because the murk was pointless beyond that depth and I could see the surface faintly so I figured I had the greatest chance of maximizing my visual field. I was kicking along when out of the right my peripheral vision spots what I think must be a nice wsb. I stop kicking and begin to glide forward when the next thing I know I look over and there is a massive set of teeth. What I don't understand is that was the last thought I had of the massive rack I had caught a glimpse of...what had me captivated was this massive eyeball clearly focusing on me. I felt like I was watching the fish think through this massive eye. As I was gliding the gws was as well and at a faster pace than me. 12-15 feet of massive fish had passed me by before a repulsive light clicked on in my head and without knowing what the hell I was doing I had my hand along it's side gliding along the leather skin. It didn't really react per say no startled movements but slowly moved enough that it was going forward at a much faster rate than I was. I watched it disappear into the murk ahead of me and without letting a bubble or fart escape my body I hit the surface and gulped in a big breath. Apparently my brain had been in adrenaline oh shit a 20ft fish just swam by me mode to oh shit a 20ft fish just decided it didn't want to eat me and I crossed the 500 yards of bed between me and the boat like a true breathe hold Olympian. It literally felt like I had just swam 100 yards on each breathe and I'm not sure that I didn't. I was a bit boggled.
I got on the boat and sat there. I think I was in shock at this point because I felt almost un-phased. I was thinking why did I touch it? Why? I've thought about diving with gws before riding them like Whalers and Healey, but this fish was thinking about EATING ME and obviously changed it's mind. Thank goodness it didn't decide to have a small sample like my leg. When the boys got back to the boat we moved on from that bed but I will say with a smile that I still managed to get back in the water. There was some strong encouragement seen swimming from the boat. It took nearly 4 hours for me to really get off the high and then I had a weird I could've died realization followed by phone conversations with some friends that wouldn't have been happy with the burden it would have left them if I had died and some that were just happy I was alive. I need to reconsider my friends :rolleyes1:
Follow-up
Not a problem if you want to share it on a Florida forum.
Oddly enough I've been fine. I talked with a buddy about it and he knew
someone who had survived an actual attack. The gws had knocked the guy out
of the water, but didn't get a bite. As I reflect more and more I come to
the same conclusion that I'll never know why it happened or why I reacted
the way I did, but I should take it for what it is and be happy I got the
experience. Some people have told me this is a way for the world to set me
on a path of enlightment or give me a push for...what? I'm not really
reading that far into to it, but I appreciate that it happened. One thing
that's pretty funny is when anything kinda comes into my peripheral I have
a flash back and get chills as I relive being watched. I can't describe to
people well enough that I only looked at the teeth for a split second and
although they were huge and went right past my head the most captivating
moment was the eye analyzing me. The teeth, the size of the shark, the fact
that it was right up on me, doesn't really bother me that much. It's the
look I got that said...what are you and should I try you. I never felt like
oh it wants to eat me because it obviously would do that if it wanted to,
it was the curiousity I saw looking at me which frightened me the most as I
swam back to the boat. I just kept thinking all it'll take is a leg and I'm
not making it back.
-Dave
I found Dave's comment about the GWS's EYE most interesting. MY BIG Shark encounter was with a 15 foot Tiger with HUGE Girth that swam just a few feet from me while freediving on the bottom at 60 feet and the thing I remember like it was yesterday was THE BIG EYE. I swear I could see him thinking and analyzing me.
