Father and spearfisherman Dean Loudoun had a close encounter with a large 8-foot shark while swimming with a group of kids at Yabarra Point, Dalmeny on Saturday afternoon.
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Dean said the group of six kids were swimming and paddling in the shallows close to the rocky point at Yabarra Beach around 3pm and he was just a bit further out with his speargun.
He was swimming back to the kids when he saw a large shark about 2.5 metres in length come out from the shallows and swim within about 20 metres of them and as close as three metres to him.
“I’ve been diving all my life here and have spent hundreds of hours in the water but to see a big shark come that close to the kids, it put the wind up me,” he said.
He said he was not willing to guess at what type of shark other than it was the “grey, pointy nose, big bitey kind”. The shark appeared to have bailed up a large school of mixed fish including salmon, bream and trevally right in the corner of the beach in as little as three or four foot of water.
Interestingly, he said the shark also had a 30cm wide strip of fishing net entangled around its midriff or centre of its body that looked like a “sports skirt”.
After the close encounter, he got the all the kids, as well as two surfers further out off the point, out of the water very quickly.