In a terrifying encounter, Declan Hamilton was surrounded by six sharks while spearfishing near Cape York, Australia. A bull shark lunged at his leg, forcing him to scramble back to safety in his boat.
As Declan Hamilton swims through the balmy, crystal-blue waters of Australia's Cape York while spearfishing with friends, he is confronted by six sharks.As an aggressive bull shark lurches for his leg, he manages to scramble back into the group's boat just before it bites.'We went up to Cape York in November (2024) with a couple of friends spearfishing at a reef off the coast there,' Mr Hamilton said.
'One of the guys had shot a fish and as we came up to the surface he had drifted away from me a little bit. 'I looked back down and I had six sharks, a mixture between grey reef sharks and a couple of bull sharks, coming up to me. 'All of a sudden, they were acting pretty erratic and one bull shark came up to my chest and I couldn't track my spear gun around in time to poke him away.'The north Queensland spearfisherman said it was the most dangerous encounter with a shark he had experienced since he started spearfishing 10 years ago.Rockhampton school chaplain and youth pastor Luke Walford was spearfishing with his family off Humpy Island, just south of Great Keppel Island,Some sharks prefer to hunt in murky waters where they rely less on vision and more on other senses to ambush prey. There were three other reported shark attacks in Queensland in 2024, according to the Australian Shark Incident Database.Mr Hamilton, who is a member of the Townsville Skindiving Club, said all spearfishers understood the risks involved every time they explored the underwater world. 'After that recent experience, I'm a little bit more cautious and try to really hone in on the risk mitigation things we put in place,' he said. 'The obvious dangers are sharks all around Australia, and up in north Queensland you've got the added risk of crocodiles and stingers.' Warmer water temperatures bring increased numbers of potentially deadly stingers to coastlines, especially in north Queenslan
SHARK ATTACK SPEARFISHING CAPE YORK AUSTRALIA QUEENSLAND
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