30/10/2019
You may have seen in the news that two guys were bitten by a shark near Hook Island in the Whitsundays. One lost a foot and the other was bitten on the calf whilst they were play-wrestling in the water. Our thoughts are with those two, but we've also had a few people who plan on a trip here contact us asking whether they should be worried. The answer is no.
This picture shows the typical way a shark is seen here. It's a white-tip reef shark and it's swimming away.
Reef sharks feed on reef fish that are about the size of a dive mask. To them we are the size of a potential predator and they're scared of us. It's very cool to see one, but likely a few people will see it then the shark will swim away. White-tip reef sharks mainly feed at night and have very tough skins to wriggle into holes in the coral to get at sleeping parrot-fish, so they're sometimes seen resting on the sand during the day then swim off when disturbed.
Exceptions do occur, but in specific circumstances that we don't encounter. These circumstances are where a shark might mistake a person for their normal prey:
One circumstance is great white sharks (that we don't get here) which are the species most frequently associated with attacks. They're found in colder water and mainly feed on seals. To a shark a surfer paddling a board might look like an injured seal at the surface.
Another circumstance is a tropical shark that may mistake a person for their normal food. This might happen if a person is spearfishing and shoots a fish. It also might happen in poor visibility in an area where sharks are used to being fed, such as if fish carcasses are thrown over the side of boats frequently in the same area.
Anything else is a freak occurrence (an often quoted statistic is that more people die from falling soda vending machines!). Sharks have never stopped us letting our own children snorkel from as far south as Lady Elliot Island to as far north as Cape York on our extensive boat travels along the GBR since they were able to swim.
So please don't worry about sharks. By far the most common danger to snorkellers is cardiovascular disease. Now that's something you should worry about!
