Sorry guys but I don't know where Gaviotas Beach is, at least by its name. I bet CC can enlighten me. I did see on a US news channel that the lady is Russian so maybe she did not understand the warnings. I remember Nicole, the other lady, did not understand enough Spanish to understand what the lifeguard was yelling about. HINT: If a lifeguard is waving his arms and yelling, get the hell out of the water. It can't be good.
Well, Por Esto does it again--warning: this is a shot of the leg bitten by the shark--not for the faint of heart: Por Esto! | Yucatán
I wasn't going to chime in here, because throughout the two threads on recent shark "incidents," (I did not say "attack," on purpose) most of you seem to have your heads screwed on right, where this subject is concerned. I have had considerable experience with sharks over my life, both as a light tackle fishing guide in the Keys for 14 years, and before that, I studied them in school, while pursuing an idea I had for a deterrent. My reason for posting, is actually because of another thread, where someone asked if it was usually this windy in Cancun. I have not been to Q.R. since December, so I do not know, but if you have windy conditions, big waves and such, chances are that the water is going to be more turbid (cloudy) in the zone where the waves break. This is where a great majority of shark incidents occur, and it is because the shark does not see you. But if his nose bumps into something, he is going to open his mouth, no matter what it is. To someone standing in chest-deep water, the result can be a little stressful, to say the least. I do not believe that these should be labled "shark attacks." Rather, they are a case of mistaken identity. How often does a shark come back for a second or third bite? They don't as a rule. Secondly, I looked at the picture of the injured leg in the link that someone posted, and my first thought was that this did not look like a shark bite. Most obviously missing, was the scalloped edge of a shark bite wound, showing where each tooth had penetrated. Rather, this looks like the result of an albeit violent encounter with the rocks that were also mentioned in several posts of this thread. But I don't know, as I have never been to a Hotel Zone Beach. Are those rocks particularly sharp-edged? Anyway, this is just a heads-up, for when you have cloudy water in the breaker zone, near the beach. Again, I do not think that 99.999% of the sharks do this on purpose, but since nobody knows for sure, why tempt fate? Besides, it's their home....we are the invaders.
Set story straight I have to say that I was present during this incident and there was NO indication by ANYONE during the entire week I was there that sharks would be in these shallow waters. Everyone including me was swimming in these waters and the lady was not out that far, just where the waves crash as we all were. I thought I was at a different incident/location until someone mentioned Congo Bongo and that is where we were. Have compassion for this person who was NOT warned about any sharks. They took over 40 minutes to close the beach after they confirmed this shark attack!
In addition We did see up to 3 sharks in the water by their shadow in the waves only. Their presence was viewed as men carried her out of the water. The lady was carried off and did have a large wound to her leg. I have not seen photos referred to but after being present on the beach, I have no doubt there were 3 sharks in shallow (3 foot water) where at least one bit her and where all of us were swimming all week without any warnings of any kind. It makes me mad the lifeguard misrepresented this entire event and I have read this repeatedly after returning to the states to see if this incident was documented.
I'm not quite sure what kind of "warnings" you expected? That sharks live in the Ocean? How could anyone know that someone would get bit before it happened?
