Sharks circle as stranded Satellite Beach diver films with GoPro
'When I got on the surface, I got around and there wasn’t a boat in sight.' There were sharks, though.
Imagine being stranded in the Atlantic Ocean, treading water as sharks swim underneath you.
It sounds like something out of a Hollywood movie, but it actually happened to Randy Fales, 68, of Satellite Beach.
“The thought of the movie ‘Open Water,’ you just think, wow, this is just like the movie,” Fales said.
He says he went out with his family on Sunday morning on a boating trip when he decided to engage in spearfishing underwater, 17 miles northeast of Sebastian Inlet, nothing particularly unusual given that Fales has been a scuba diver since 1980.
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He dived in as family on the boat, including his two daughters, three grandsons, granddaughter and a boyfriend of the daughter, enjoyed their morning while watching a jug tied to the anchor line that would tell them where Fales was located.
The problem for all involved, however, is that the line separated from the two so that the diver and boat were well away from each other, with the jug pushed away by what Fales described as “about a 10- to 15-knot wind.”
“When I got on the surface, I got around and there wasn’t a boat in sight,” Fales said. “… I picked up on a wave to see as far as I could and no boat.”
But as if that wasn’t enough, about six minutes after he surfaced, Fales had another problem when he saw a shark swimming underneath him, something he managed to capture on a GoPro camera.
The shark, which he estimated to be “probably 6-8 feet” in length, got a little more aggressive each time it passed by Fales.
“He came real close to me one time and when I kicked, I kicked his pectoral fin,” he said.
WATCH: Diver films own close-encounter with sharks
As he swam about an hour after he surfaced, a second shark began to emerge in his general area.
Fortunately, after about an hour and a half, he was picked up by another boat, after which he was eventually reunited with his relieved family.
The family in the boat, meanwhile, had issues contacting the Coast Guard due to a poor signal, only exacerbating their worries.
“I got to the point where I was like, ‘Oh no, we’ve lost our dad,’ and then we can’t even get through to anyone and it was just kind of a scary feeling,” said Carleigh Fales, Randy’s daughter. “… I was just so happy then we saw them (the boat carrying her dad). We were so relieved that these guys picked them up.”
Most people would consider what Fales went through harrowing, to say the least, but Fales doesn’t see it that way.
“It wasn’t really that scary of a situation,” said Randy Fales.
Despite all this, he says he hopes to get back out into the water soon.
“In fact, I’m hoping to be able to go diving this weekend,” he added.
Contact Bonanno at 321-242-3662, cbonanno@floridatoday.com or follow Chris on Twitter @FTChrisBonanno.
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