Divers say surviving shark waters 'as good as it gets'
How good does it feel to be rescued from shark-infested waters off Australia after six hours adrift and with daylight running out?
“As good as it gets,” British tourist Gordon Pratley said today. “As good as winning the Ashes,” he added, in a reference to the coveted cricket trophy England snatched from arch rival Australia last week.
Pratley said he and fiancee Louise Woodger hugged, held hands and sang to keep up their spirits after strong currents swept them away from their dive boat over the Great Barrier Reef and a shark circled in the water below them.
They spoke to the media today in the north-east Australian city of Townsville, where they were recovering from their ordeal, which echoed the 2003 movie Open Water, based loosely on another incident involving divers on the Great Barrier Reef.
American tourists Tom and Eileen Lonergan are believed to have drowned or been eaten by sharks after a dive boat crew accidentally left them on the reef in 1998. Strict safety measures were imposed on Australia’s diving industry following the Lonergans’ disappearance.
Pratley said the couple did not even want to contemplate a similar fate.
“We just sort of looked out for each other,” he said. “We were hoping somebody was going to turn up. At first you think you are going to be fine, and then, as it gets later and later, you think – well you don’t really want to think what might happen, you just stay cool. No, we always thought we’d be rescued.”
The captain of the boat Woodger and Pratley were diving from reported them missing after a routine head count revealed they were not among the group of divers early on Saturday, sparking a widespread air and sea hunt that led to their rescue.
They eventually were pulled from the water, suffering from exhaustion and mild hypothermia, almost six miles from where they first entered the Coral Sea at Wheeler Reef, about 55 miles from Townsville in Queensland state.
Greg Doyle, a Townsville police officer, told Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio that in interviews with police, “they mentioned that at one stage a shark did show some interest in them, but thankfully it swam away without prying any further, so they were very thankful for that,” he added.
Pratley, 31, today joked that Woodger, 29, only told him the shark was circling them once the couple had been rescued.
“You didn’t tell me it was … circling us until we got out,” he joked.
Woodger said the shark was about eight feet below them.
“I think it was a white-tipped reef shark,” she said, referring to a species of shark not known to attack humans. “But not too big.”
Coast guard commander Richard Bolton said the couple realised early in their ordeal that they had been stranded.
“They came to the surface after three quarters of an hour and realised they’d drifted away from their boat,” he said.
“They started to look after themselves, they inflated their vests so they could remain afloat, stay together,” he added.
Bolton said time was on the couple’s side.
“Had the search gone longer – another couple of hours – it would have been after dark, but everything was going their way,” he said.
