Tom Brough was out spear fishing, about 50m off Huriawa Peninsula, when he was shocked by what came round the corner.
"It was just normal spear fishing, just sort of in an area where I’ve gone many times — pretty safe, sheltered, kind of calm place usually," he said.
He had caught a couple of fish and had just fired his last shot when a 4m-long great white shark came up behind him.
"He came to face me and basically just went for the fish.
"I sort of realised what it was after and kind of pushed the fish at him and he took it and then kind of bolted with my speargun."
The shark then disappeared but was quickly back for some more tucker — this time swallowing one of Dr Brough’s fins.
"He came back around, and I was kind of swimming backwards with my eyes on him pretty hard and he just came back for another look. I kicked out towards him with my fin to kind of, basically push him off, because it was getting pretty close.
"And then it took a chomp on my fin and tore that off.
"It was touching distance. I mean, it grabbed my fin off my foot, so that’s basically pretty much as close as you can get without it taking a part of you. Centimetres, probably.
"Thankfully, I managed to keep it a little bit rational and not panic and just put my back to the coast and backtrack towards the coast and keep keeping my eyes on it." Adrenaline took over.
With the shark away collecting the bag, Dr Brough swiftly made it to land.
"I remember sitting on that rock just going, ‘Holy hell, that was close’. Understanding, realising what would have happened if it had been a worst-case scenario — it would have been pretty awful.
"Obviously, it wasn’t trying to go for me. It wasn’t an attack. It was just an encounter and him coming past and grabbing the fish."
Dr Brough, who is a marine scientist and works for Earth Sciences NZ, was 100% certain it was a great white.
"It was the biggest shark I’d ever seen and I’ve seen some big ones in the water, a lot of species. I would say probably about 4m in there. Just really big, really wide, too. A lot of body to them. Big pectoral fins and big tall dorsal fins."
He said the experience had not put him off and he was back in his kayak yesterday and was looking forward to going for a surf.
"Yeah, they’re beautiful animals, and, you know, it’s me being in its environment. You take that risk sometimes, and it all came out all right."
