160 YEARS AGO IN GEELONG
(From the pages of the Geelong Chronicle)
SHARK! SHARK!
In February 1862, according to a report in the newspaper, an old townsman was fishing off the wharf at Geelong.
“The day was sultry and the fish disinclined to nibble. The bay was smooth as glass, and as clear. A couple of fishing boats lay lazily off the wharf, the sails idly flapping. Our hero resolved to bathe. Having gone through the usual preliminaries to the performance, he threw himself headlong, with a refreshing splash, into fourteen feet of water.
“Suddenly he heard two cries, simultaneously raised, of ‘a shark, a shark’. The fishermen were shouting, but thinking it to be only a joke, he continued his aquatic evolutions until a grazing sensation along his ankle, leg and thigh, warned him of something that made his blood run cold. A moment more and a shark’s head was alongside his own. They were parallel swimming the same course. He, gasping and trembling; it, silent and deadly – the dorsal fin clearing the surface of the sea.
“Aware that to stop would be instant death, he struck out manfully for the shore, the shark still swimming close and closer, when thinking that it was about to turn, he struck at it, and in doing so stripped the flesh from the side of his right arm from the elbow down to the wrist. The shark dived again, grazing his victim, but showing no inclination to bite. Shallow water was reached – assistance afforded – and our hero was saved.”
Later that year, the residents of Geelong had the chance to see a tiger shark up close.
“One of these denizens of the deep was exhibited at the fishmonger’s shop, in Moorabool Street, on Saturday last. The fish was then still alive, and made known his vitality upon any attempt to touch his head. He was upwards of seven feet long and bulky in proportion, in fact a very dangerous fellow to come across in his own element. He was caught off the Yarra Street wharf, which shows the necessity of paying attention to the guard-wires which surround our bathing houses.”
This article was provided by the Geelong Historical Society. For inquiries, email admin@geelonghistoricalsociety.org.au or write C/- P.O. Box 7129, Geelong West, 3218.
