A kayaker has told how he feared for his life when a shark took an enormous bite out of his boat and left him to sink out at sea.
Gavin Kleidon, 39, is lucky to be alive after the bull shark sank its jaws into the 6.5m kayak, which then began to sink on Sunday afternoon.
The electrician, who was paddling 5 miles off the Sunshine Coast near Brisbane, Australia, said: “I was paddling along minding my own business, it was all good and next thing, bam, I was in the water.
“I was scrambling to get back on my boat as quick as I could, being in the water with it being around was my biggest fear.”
Mr Kleidon luckily had his phone on him and called the emergency services , before making a panicked phone call to his wife.
The experienced kayaker spent 40 minutes clinging to his sinking kayak with the shark in the vicinity, and feared it would come back for him.
He added: “If you get a bite you’re probably going to bleed out in that sort of time.”
Mr Kleidon said he was about to make the treacherous swim back to the coast when the police arrived.
Brisbane Water Police responded to the call and were able to track his location with the help of planes coming in to land at nearby Brisbane Airport.
The kayaker said he was able to give details of his position, saying: “I said, ‘that plane that just turned was right on top of me’, so they were there pretty quick.”
Sergeant Gordon Thiry said Mr Kleidon was uninjured “although quite shaken and glad to be out of the water”.
He added: “We would encourage anyone heading out on the water to always wear a life jacket, carry an Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon and make sure you let someone else know where you’re travelling to and how long it will take.”
But Mr Kleidon said the experience has not put him off kayaking at the beauty spot, adding: “It’s unfortunate that I was there and that the shark was there and that’s how it ended up.”
Marine expert Tony Isaacson said bull shark activity was heightened during flooding events such as Cyclone Debbie, with the debris washed downstream by flooding creating a “county fair” of sorts for bull sharks.
He said the murky waters increased risk to water users, as bull sharks would bump and bite to determine whether objects were edible.
Gavin Kleidon, 39, is lucky to be alive after the bull shark sank its jaws into the 6.5m kayak, which then began to sink on Sunday afternoon.
The electrician, who was paddling 5 miles off the Sunshine Coast near Brisbane, Australia, said: “I was paddling along minding my own business, it was all good and next thing, bam, I was in the water.
“I was scrambling to get back on my boat as quick as I could, being in the water with it being around was my biggest fear.”
Mr Kleidon luckily had his phone on him and called the emergency services , before making a panicked phone call to his wife.
The experienced kayaker spent 40 minutes clinging to his sinking kayak with the shark in the vicinity, and feared it would come back for him.
He added: “If you get a bite you’re probably going to bleed out in that sort of time.”
Mr Kleidon said he was about to make the treacherous swim back to the coast when the police arrived.
Brisbane Water Police responded to the call and were able to track his location with the help of planes coming in to land at nearby Brisbane Airport.
The kayaker said he was able to give details of his position, saying: “I said, ‘that plane that just turned was right on top of me’, so they were there pretty quick.”
Sergeant Gordon Thiry said Mr Kleidon was uninjured “although quite shaken and glad to be out of the water”.
He added: “We would encourage anyone heading out on the water to always wear a life jacket, carry an Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon and make sure you let someone else know where you’re travelling to and how long it will take.”
But Mr Kleidon said the experience has not put him off kayaking at the beauty spot, adding: “It’s unfortunate that I was there and that the shark was there and that’s how it ended up.”
Marine expert Tony Isaacson said bull shark activity was heightened during flooding events such as Cyclone Debbie, with the debris washed downstream by flooding creating a “county fair” of sorts for bull sharks.
He said the murky waters increased risk to water users, as bull sharks would bump and bite to determine whether objects were edible.
Music: "Dub Eastern" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Source: ABC, Mirror, SunShineCoastDaily
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