Shark Wrangler | June 14, 2005

The @media compare asked each of the speakers for an interesting fact about themselves that wasn’t in their biography. My interesting fact was that I briefly worked as a shark wrangler on a dive boat on the Greta Barrier Reef, keeping the sharks away from the clients during feeds. The evening after my talk I heard that one of the delegates had been drawing caricatures of the speakers and mine involved me wrestling a shark called tables. I wasn’t sure I believed it, but yesterday Kev Mears emaild me this.

Cartoon of me wrestling a shark called tables

Posted at June 14, 2005 1:57 PM

Comments

juque said on June 14, 2005 1:45 PM

wow!, super Budd!, very funny!

AkaXakA said on June 14, 2005 1:59 PM

So, once you domesticated him you fought crime together, right?

JonB said on June 14, 2005 2:15 PM

But were you actually a shark wrangler?

Julian said on June 14, 2005 2:46 PM

Hehe, very nice!

Jacob Rask said on June 14, 2005 2:59 PM

Haha, lovely..

Small Paul said on June 14, 2005 3:19 PM

Heh!

Shark wrangler? I’m icthyophobic, so that’s, like, my nightmare job.

Still. Post more descriptions of the job here. Then I can tell girls in bars I was a shark wrangler too. Oh yeah :)

Britt said on June 14, 2005 6:04 PM

So, Andy, how does one keep sharks away from clients during feeds? And was there a plan B if a shark slipped through?

Andy Budd said on June 14, 2005 8:40 PM

I’m a qualified dive instructor and spent several years travelling round the world diving. I spent most of my time in South East Asia but did work for a few months on a dive boat on the Barrier Reef.

One of my jobs was as a “safety diver” on shark feeds. A shot line containing fish heads was dropped from a tender to attract sharks. The clients would rest on a natural rock amphitheatre at about 15m to watch the action.

My job was to hover between the clients and the sharks to make sure none got too close. We didn’t have any bang sticks so it was mostly a psychological barrier and if anybody was going to be nipped it would have been us rather than a paying customer.

I nicked the term “shark wrangler” off the movie Deep Blue Sea. I was basically a dive guide but the term shark wrangler sounds a lot more exciting.

Ben Darlow said on June 15, 2005 10:56 PM

I believe I was drunkenly relating this tale of the superhero shark wrestler in the Bankside Bar on thursday evening, when due to far too much alcohol I referred to you as Andy Todd.

Glad you finally got the picture in the end and were able to see I wasn’t talking complete rot. Just mostly. Sorry about the name thing again :|