Durban man escapes great white shark encounter
A Durban North man is considering himself lucky after being knocked off his surf-ski by a great white shark at Westbrook Beach this weekend.
Grant Wardell says that he was fishing about 1.2 kilometres out at sea when he was attacked by the almost 3 metre shark.
He had been fishing with his brother at the time.
''It came out of the water and opened its mouth and that's the kind of stuff you see only on TV with its teeth coming forward and its gums going back and its eyes rolling back.
''The only thing I really remember was the big teeth and eyes and then seeing the bottom of the shark - and seeing its white and realising it was a great white.
''From then it knocked me off my boat, I don't really remember what happened then but I remember just climbing back onto my surf-ski,'' he said.
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Wardell says it took him two attempts to get out of the water.
''I then tried to jumped onto my surf-ski in the first attempt and fell back into the water.
''All this kicking then started getting me thinking that the shark was going to come back and eventually in the second attempt I got back onto my surf-ski and then we decided to start paddling back. I pulled my rods out of the sea,'' he added.
(File photo: Getty Images)