A Galápagos shark off the coast of the Revillagigedo Islands in Mexico in 2016. Photo / Getty Images
“My whole head was inside of her mouth,” Mauricio Hoyos, a marine scientist from Mexico, said from a hospital in Costa Rica.
Mauricio Hoyos, an experienced marine scientist from Mexico, fastened his scuba gear and descended into the waters off Cocos Island, hundreds of miles southwest of Costa Rica, on Saturday to tag sharks for conservation research.
Within minutes, when he reached a depth of 37m, he spotted a 3-metre-long Galapagos shark, a migratory species. He took aim with his pole spear and released a tag. It met its mark, embedding in the base of the shark’s dorsal fin.
Then what started as a typical day took a sharp turn. Hoyos, 48, became the target.
From a few feet away, the shark darted at him, jaws agape.
“She turned sideways in my direction; it was really fast,” he said in an interview Wednesday. “It was wide open; my whole head was inside of her mouth in less than a second.”
He heard a cracking sound. “But it was just pressure,” he said. “As soon as she felt my skull, she released me. She opened and swam away.”
Blood and water filled his mask, which the shark had knocked askew. Its teeth had severed the air hoses on his scuba gear.
Unable to see clearly, he sensed the shark was moving away when he noticed its retreating shadow.
“I saw the shadow twice in front of me,” he said. “If she wanted, she could have killed me.”
Losing blood and air, he started to ascend slowly to decompress properly, adrenaline coursing through his body. After a series of small exhalations, he was at the surface, where he felt like fainting. He clung to his team’s skiff, was helped aboard, and then was taken to Cocos Island, where park medics gave him first aid before the journey to the mainland.
Speaking from a hospital bed in San José, Costa Rica’s capital, Hoyos said he was awaiting surgery on his jaw after getting stitches to close slice wounds on his scalp and punctures to his face – a total of 27 injuries, one for each of the 27 teeth that apparently sank into his flesh.
Hoyos was chief scientist for a team that is studying shark migratory patterns along an underwater mountain ridge off Cocos Island, more than 645km from mainland Costa Rica, to help assess the need for protections for sharks from commercial fishing. The team left Costa Rica on September 20 and conducted its first dive in the Cocos Island area two days later.
Hoyos’ encounter with the shark occurred on the sixth dive day of the research trip.
Alex Antoniou, the director of Fins Attached Marine Research and Conservation, a nonprofit group, was working with Hoyos, who leads Pelagios Kakunjá, a conservation organisation based in La Paz, Mexico.
“How he responded was probably a lot different from a normal diver,” Antoniou said in an interview. “He understands shark behaviour.”
“It’s the wild,” Antoniou added. “It’s unpredictable.”
A marine expert who has tagged countless species over 30 years, including great white and tiger sharks, Hoyos described how his early afternoon dive Saturday turned into an unusual feat of survival that unfolded in the depths, where experienced scientists in his field operate in both defence and awe of the environment around them.
A diving buddy who was in the water with him was unable to get close enough to help until after the shark had glided away.
“My main concern was I felt like I could not breathe,” Hoyos said. “I tried to suck air and it was not working.”
“To be honest it was like in slow motion,” he said. “But my mind was very calm. I was thinking the whole time about what to do.”
He had tagged other sharks during the trip, including hammerheads and whale sharks. Galapagos sharks were usually easier to tag because, as top predators, they are generally not as afraid of humans, he said.
He interpreted the behaviour of the female shark that he encountered last week as a surprise response to being tagged.
“She was heading down and never saw me, and then she felt the puncture” of the tag, Hoyos said. “It was a defensive bite. She wanted me to stay away from her personal space.”
It was his first bite, too.
“I have been doing this for 30 years,” he said. “She was scared also. It was not her fault.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Written by: Christine Hauser
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