An eyewitness believed a spearfisherman had been fatally attacked by a great white shark after noticing only a fishing floatation buoy bobbing in the waters 200 yards off South Africa with no sign of the diver.
But when rescuers arrived on the scene, they found spearfisherman Theodore Prinsloo safely on shore with an amazing story to share about a 16-foot shark dragging him out to sea, this according to the National Sea Rescue Institute Plettenberg Bay station commander Marc Rodgers.
Prinsloo was on vacation with his family in Nature’s Valley, a holiday resort on the Southern Cape coast, when the incident occurred Wednesday.
He noticed a shark swimming in the vicinity he was spearfishing and suspected it was the same shark that had been seen in the area the day before. Prinsloo had kept close to the rocks as the shark swam up close to him at one point.
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Twenty minutes after hooking a 20-pound musselcracker fish onto his fishing floatation buoy, the shark reappeared and grabbed the fish and began swimming out to sea, dragging Prinsloo with it. Rodgers said the shark took Prinsloo about 165 feet before the diver managed to unhook the floatation buoy from his spear gun and escape the shark.
He then quickly swam to shore.
The crew aboard the NSRI rescue craft did make one rescue on the day, but it was too late to save the musselcracker, as only its head remained.
“We recovered the buoy, line and the fish head onto our sea rescue craft and Theodore and his family came to fetch the buoy and line at our sea rescue base,” Rodgers said. “Theodore [said] that he needs the buoy to go spearfishing tomorrow and is grateful that NSRI recovered his buoy.”
Photo showing Prinsloo getting his floatation buoy back courtesy of the National Sea Rescue Institute.