"Capt. Mooron" wrote in message ...
"Peter Wiley" wrote in message
| Try tiger sharks if you want really scary. Vicious, large *and*
| common.

Yup... I was a commercial diver on a cable barge laying a line to an
island.... we saw over two dozen Tiger Sharks in a 4 day period there down
to 180 feet. We dove pairs to have one person keep an eye on curious
tigers... they where armed with CO2 shark spears which would theoretically
inflate a shark unpin striking with sufficient gas to keep it from being
"interested". We never used any of them.

My favourite were the Hammerheads in Pago Harbour.

Yeah, hammerheads are interesting. I dissected hundreds of them that
we caught using gillnets in the Arafura Sea. 4 main species down here,
of which Sphyrna mokarran is the biggest - large sickle shaped dorsal
fin, lemon coloured skin. I still have a set of jaws from one which I
measured at 15 feet from tip of snout to fork of tail. Biggest one we
ever caught; my boss was always trying to get the jaws off me for his
collection. He still works on sharks for CSIRO Marine Research.

Off Tasmania, I think we only get S. zygaena, maybe S. lewini in the
summer months. White pointers of course, they're regulars around Bruny
Island because of the seals & penguins (plus the odd surfer...)

I saw lots of sharks
while tacking zincs to Korean Longliners at the Star-Kist Plant. Many
different varieties.... The boats were docked next to the outfall from the
processing plant... guts and tidbits all around and usually a feeding frenzy
going on somewhere nearby. I was never attacked by any of the sharks....
although some would show aggressive behaviour by dropping their pectorals
and arching their backs while making quick zig zag motions near me... that's

Good move. I still have a couple of shark killing powerheads in my
bits collection somewhere, a 12G shotgun shell one and a .303 rifle
one. Never had to use either one in anger but even when I was a keen
spearfishing type, I used a float on 40' of line and kept the fish
clipped to the float. In the tropics off the Wessel Islands if we
scored a crayfish, we'd hop out of the water PDQ. The tail flapping
always but always attracted a curious shark.

Sharks & crocs have never worried me greatly. OTOH I was never happy
about bears when I hiked in the States. What you know....

PDW