The encounter “all happened so fast” as the shark began attacking him within a few seconds of seeing it.
“It just came completely out of the blue.”
More damage caused by the shark. Photo / Supplied
Namioka said he acted on instinct during the encounter, and was only able to think about what happened afterwards.
“It felt like something out of a movie.”
Namioka said he is still shaken and only slept a couple of hours last night because of the adrenaline.
Around 10-15 minutes after the pair returned to shore, someone spotted what seemed to be the same shark’s fins sticking out of the shallow water near the beach.
Namioka said people going to other popular Coromandel spots like Ōpito Bay, or Kūaotunu, “need to be a little bit on alert” because of the shark’s hostile nature, he said.
Bronze whaler sharks, which are not known to attack people, are commonplace in the bay, but Namioka suspected that this may have been a mako shark, although he’s “not 100%” sure.
The shark was small, between 220 and 250cm, Namioka estimated, so its behaviour was surprising.
“My kayak was not that much smaller than the shark itself, and it was just fearless going at me with no hesitation or anything. I’ve never heard of anything like that before.”
Namioka said the orange colour of his kayak may have attracted the shark as it did not attack his mum’s boat, which was a different colour.
“Which is lucky because my mum’s kayak is considerably smaller and she’s an older woman, so it could have been a lot more dangerous if it went for her.”
In Namioka’s years of holidaying at the family bach near Matapaua Bay, he’s never heard of anything like that happening, he said.
The encounter has put Namioka off going back out on the water for a few days, he told the Herald.
