Postby RickI » Fri Jan 25, 2013 9:35 pm
It may not have been quite that obvious in advance. The things we know, the blacktip migration was underway. Sightings had been made of thousands of sharks a few days earlier off Singer Island miles to the south. The thing is these guys show up and vanish, then show up again. Further, when the weather is calmer, Gulfstream is closer to shore all that clear water off Singer Island shows up the sharks nicely. In more turbid conditions, typical off South Hutchinson Island where Steve was attacked, masses of sharks may not have been visible at all. It is a normally fairly sharky place to begin with. You can see thousands of smaller blacktips nearshore in clear water but may not even be aware of the larger, more aggressive sharks that ride herd and feed on the shorter tiburons. Beyond that surfers along this section of coast have developed a substantial tolerance to the presence of sharks despite lesser attacks over the years. The lifeguard who rescued Steve was himself attacked and hospitalized as a teen. There have been other attacks on surfers up and down the coast, often of fairly minor nature.
So, if the 1) migration is on, your risk goes up. If you see 2) sharks jumping and spinning, your risk goes up further. If you see 3) baitfish breaking the surface, diving sea birds, your risk just jumped again. If you are out a 4) sunset, more risk still. Blacktips apparently don't like the way we taste and so may just bite once and run off. Hope they don't bite something critical if they do however. The larger bulls and tigers may bite once or several times and with a larger bite radius may do more damage. They seem to have a tendency to strike your thigh, butt area, likely to stop you from swimming off but also possibly severing your femoral artery as happened to Steve and another kiter in the Pacific. There is nothing cut and dried about any of this, just subjective risk assessments and further, shark attacks on kiters are still very rare. Then again, riding in the midst of thousands of sharks would seem to up your risk substantially, busting out of the normal statistics, making you a "special case".