Hammerhead Shark "attack" at Grayton

[Smiling JOe]

I don't think I have ever seen so many parents screaming with fear and their kids screaming right back at them. The quick story is that about 20 small kids were on a big @ss float at the first sandbar and a few daddies were holding the float while standing on the bar.

Someone spotted a

shark. The water quickly cleared except for all of those screaming kids and daddies. Everyone was panicking just like the movie JAWS. It was chaos. The dads quickly tried swimming

the big float filled with kids back to shore and I am sure it felt like it took them 30 minutes to do so. Kids were crying and screaming, scared to death. ( I am thinking relax. Breathe.) Our brave, local heros, Rick(local), Brian Wise (WaCo Ramblers), Kelly and JP (both work at RedBar) were going in to pull kids to shore. Everyone watched as the small Hammerhead (Rick says it was a Hammerhead but I couldn't tell) swam up and down the beach, very close to shore. No one was hurt, but there are a few kids who will be ruined for life with their shark experience. I say everyone who saw the shark should consider themselves lucky. It was a special moment. (Nothing like that kind of fear to make one feel small again.) ;-)

For those of you who did not read closely, there was no actual attack by the shark.

 

[Mermaid]

My two kids would have been edging into the water for a closer look (and so would we I think). Sort of like the way jdarg told me she was looking at that rattlesnake over the weekend, poking and proding it, until someone wiser and more sensible told her that that was a poisonous snake she was messing with. Some people scream and panic when faced with nature; others are clueless.

 

[Sandcastle]

I can?t wait to see how this is reported on the 11:00 PM news tonight in Tallahassee. Some of those kids are bound to have on-going psychological problems. Maybe the parents can sue the shark.

 

[SHELLY]

Food for Thought: More sharks see people in the water..than people see sharks.

 

[Oldtimer]

The same kind of experience happened to us the last week of June. It was not in any way life threatening, but just the mention of "shark" and the memory of the movie "Jaws" puts a real fear in your mind.

There were about six of us about chest high in the water, loving every minute, when our daughter's boyfriend yelled, "Shark!" I thought he was kidding and was ready to drown him....when I saw everyone moving quickly toward shore (no easy feat for me).

All of us were out of the Gulf in seconds (seemed much longer!), but not before one of the two sharks swam right at me....just a couple feet away and coming towards me. Even though the sharks were only about three feet long, it still scared me. It also made me a bit cautious about going back in the water....but we did, just kept looking around for large objects swimming in the Gulf.

I've been swimming at Grayton all of my medium-long life and have never seen a shark in the water near me before. Now, I don't think these two could have "eaten" us or even taken a limb, but they still scared all of our group that was in the water.

What has happened in Nature to bring these animals to the Panhandle coast?

 

[Kurt]

The 1994 net ban has brought back all species of fish to higher levels, including sharks.

Before that, commercial fishermen used gill nets longer than a football field to scoop up everything in their path. Such overfishing led to depletion of a variety of species and had a negative impact on the marine environment.

 

[Smiling JOe]

What has happened in Nature to bring these animals to the Panhandle coast?

fish (food) "happened" and of course the Gulf "happened." If the Gulf weren't so close to Grayton, we wouldn't have sharks around Grayton. :funn:

I guess the same question could be twisted to ask about the human animals, "What has happened in Nature to bring these animals to the Panhandle coast?"

 

[DERBYGIRL]

Hi Everyone. I coming to visit the first week in August. Any advice on ocean safety with the kids? The adults are usually close by and we stay in groups. We don't let kids go very far out. Ages are 6 - 13. We have 10 kids in our group. Are there lifeguards at Grayton Beach? Does the water stay shallow very far out? I am always afraid my kids will walk off a sandbar. We stayed in Panama City last year and saw 3 sharks. I know they are in the water but these were very close to shore.

I am the safety lady on our group vacations so any helpful hints would be appreciated.

Thanks.

By the way.. I have been reading these posts for a couple of months. I love it.

 

[Uncle Timmy]

I feel bad for those poor terrified tourists. I saw a small shark myself a few weekends ago while swimming in Blue Mountain Beach. I was with a friend and we watched it swim near us for a minute and then it went away.

I have always followed the advice not to go swimming between dusk and dawn, when the water is murky, or when the fish are jumping. And don't go past the second sand bar, because the really big sharks are out there.

Follow that advice and I believe that you are safe in the water.

 

[DERBYGIRL]

What is the first sandbar and second sandbar?