No.12 LIHOU REEF - under construction post

Spider shell (live)

Grey reef sharks circle the charter boat as soon as the anchor was dropped.

Dog tooth tuna partially eaten by small Grey reef shark, Lihou Reef 1983

Lihou Reef has a population of Silver tip whaler sharks - or at least a species with white tip on it's dorsal fin.

Later I'll post details of an extremely nasty encounter a pair of friends had.  Their report would be 100% accurate.

I did some filming here in 1983 on the first of my three visits to Lihou which was included in a commercially released home video titled "Reef Safari".  (Low grade quality on Super8 film at 20 fps).

 Near shark bite-'attack' on free divers in 1976 at Lihou Reef.  Interview tells how a surgeon fish was speared to get an eight-foot Silvertip aroused - which happened.

Both fish and spearhead were jammed in the coral.  Shark could not get at the struggling fish, turned it's attention on the diver No.1 on the surface and swam toward him with mouth open.

Diver was able to raise his small movie camera housing under the sharks' jaw and combined with the speed it was traveling, the entire shark flipped out of the water.

Shark then turned its attention on the 2nd diver with the speargun and then tried to bite him also.  Twice the speargun went down the sharks' throat with jaws snapping on the speargun barrel.

An identical shark caught the following day had teeth examined and were said to be identical with whaler sharks found on Solitary Island off Wooli.

Note: These were both very experienced free divers. (Ron Taylor and Vic Ley). The estimate of the shark being eight feet in length would be very conservative and an under-estimate.

This post will be updated from time to time.