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A fishing group has experienced a new level of adventure after a massive mako shark made an unexpected appearance while their boat was out in the deep waters.
Sailing off the coast of Whitianga in New Zealand’s coastal town of Coromandel, the boat’s skipper and its five passengers got the fright of their lives as they witnessed a mako shark jump onto their vessel and then wriggle its way back into the water.
The wild encounter took place while the group was looking for kingfish, ABC7 reported. It was caught on camera, and the resulting footage, which has since spread on social media, shows the mammal flopping on its side and its belly, on the bow of the charter.
Mako sharks can grow up to 14.8 feet in length and can exceed 1,100 pounds (500 kilograms) in weight, as per Britannica.
According to skipper Ryan Churches, the boat’s owner, the “bonkers” incident was a first for him, too. “We were out at the Aldermans fishing with five customers on board winding a bait in and the mako took the bait,” he told NZ Herald.
“We were fighting it normally and it was jumping around. I told the customers, ‘If it jumps in the boat get out of the way.’ It just so happened that about 30 seconds later it jumped on the top of the boat. It was crazy,” he then recalled, adding that the shark weighed an estimated 150 kilograms and was almost 8 to 9 feet long.
“We were all watching the rod and the line was going out to the side of the boat and it changed direction suddenly… It just happened to jump at the same time and we got a hell of a fright,” Churches added.
So what happened later? Apparently, the adventurous sighting didn’t last long. After crashing on the boat, the mako shark tried to escape for a maximum of “two-minutes tops.” While it was struggling to make it back into the waters, Churches was concerned that they might have to attempt to free the shark, and the danger associated with doing so loomed largely.
Luckily, things didn’t get to that point. The mako shark successfully wriggled its way into the water. “He got away safe. There’s nothing much we could do. We can’t go up the front to go near it because they go absolutely bonkers,” Churches shared.
“We dropped the anchor down a little bit because it seemed to be holding it in place [on the boat]. He went absolutely bonkers again and pushed himself through the bow rail and slid back into the water,” he explained.
The skipper and the whole crew believed that luck was truly on their side because had the mako shark landed at the back of the boat where all of them were, there were chances that things could’ve gone horribly wrong.
“I was trying to figure out ways of how to get it off if it didn’t slide off. I was thinking what the f— do we do? But it all worked out. The customers reacted better than what a lot of people would have. The cameras were out, but they probably didn’t realize the danger we could have been in,” Churches said further.
“We were lucky it was on the front of the boat and we had windscreens and hard tops blocking it. We were lucky it didn’t come into the back of the boat otherwise it could have a wildly different story,” he continued.
In similar news, a great white shark jumped on an Australian fisherman’s boat when he went out fishing at Evans Head in South Wales. The fisherman, identified as Terry Selwood, said the incident didn’t deter him. He added that he would absolutely go fishing again as it was “just a mundane thing.”
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