Man stalked by great white shark during 20km ocean swim
A Sydney man has revealed his horror after he was stalked by a huge great white shark during an ocean swim event.
Lawyer Eli Ball, 34, was competing in the 19.7km Rottnest Channel Swim on Saturday alongside 2,000 swimmers who had descended on Perth to take on the gruelling annual event.
While Mr Ball's unusual choice of butterfly stroke turned heads in the crowd, it was something far more sinister that grabbed his attention 12km into the race.
"It was at the bottom of the sea floor; I'm not very good at estimating depths of water when I'm that far out to sea, but I'd say it was maybe 12 metres deep at that point," he told Perth radio station 6PR.
Mr Ball had caught a glimpse of what is believed to have been four-metre great white shark and quickly raised the alarm to his team.
"The first thing I did was I stopped [and] yelled out "and now there's a shark" or something like that," he said.
"The thing that... I remember thinking to myself is, 'my goodness it's wide', it was very, very wide."
Mr Ball quickly made his way to the side of his team's boat, which began revving its engines in a bid to scare the shark off.
"You better believe I made my way hastily to the side of the boat," he recalled.
"My skipper who was fantastic on the day came over to the window and asked me, 'where?' and I said, 'right under the boat, right under the boat'."
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After taking another look in the water, he noticed the shark was still lingering perilously close beneath.
Mr Ball's team contacted race officials who then made the decision to pull 100 swimmers from the race with the shark lurking in waters below the swimming pack.
Even though it was Mr Ball who made the sighting, he was allowed to continue with his race and became only the second athlete in history to complete the race using the butterfly stroke.
He says he is disappointed so many swimmers' days were tarnished by the sighting but ultimately agrees the right decision was made.
And after seven long hours in the water, Mr Ball said his body was holding up fine following his taxing choice of swimming style.
"I put on my jacket this morning, felt a bit stiff, but otherwise I'm feeling pretty good."
