Spain Deadly attacks off Gran Canaria: Shark attacked woman while fishing

“It's a fantastic sailing adventure that you won't forget in a hurry.” This is how many skippers advertise online for fellow travelers who want to sail from the Spanish holiday island of Gran Canaria along the West African coast south to the Cape Verde Islands. The trip lasts from a week to ten days – depending on the wind and weather. The sailboat travels past the Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara, then Mauritania to the island state of Cape Verde, which lies off the coast of Senegal in the Atlantic.

For a 30-year-old German woman, this adventure turned into a nightmare: she boarded the 17-meter-long catamaran “Dalliance Chichester” on September 14. On the third day of the boat trip, she bled to death after being attacked by a shark that ripped off her leg with its razor-sharp teeth. At that time, the ship, which sails under the British flag, was at sea in the middle of the Atlantic – far from rescue help.

When the captain made a distress call, it was discovered that the boat was already more than 500 kilometers from Gran Canaria. The tragedy occurred near the Western Saharan city of Dakhla, a fishing village from which refugee boats carrying African migrants regularly set off for the Canary Islands. But even at the time of the accident, the African coast was 180 kilometers away.

When a Spanish rescue helicopter took the seriously injured German woman on board four hours after the emergency call, the woman had already lost a lot of blood. She died on the flight back to Gran Canaria. An investigating judge in the Gran Canaria city of Las Palmas is now investigating the circumstances of her death. The Canary Islands tourism industry is worried that international headlines such as “Fatal shark attack off Gran Canaria” could damage the good image of the Canary Islands.

Meanwhile, further details of the tragedy have become known. According to the report, the woman was not attacked by the predatory fish while swimming in the sea, but while she was fishing on the boat. “The attack occurred when the woman threw bait into the sea to fish from the catamaran,” the newspaper reports. The provincethe most influential newspaper in the Canary Islands. The Germans probably wanted to attract larger fish with these baits, presumably leftover fish or meat. The deep waters off the Western Sahara are said to be extremely rich in fish. There are also plenty of sharks here.

The sun was shining. It was warm. That's probably why the woman dangled one of her legs in the cooling water while fishing, according to the Christian sea rescue service. At that moment, the shark suddenly emerged from the depths and bit.

“What happened to the woman was probably bad luck,” says marine biologist José Juan Castro. Even if horror films paint a different picture, shark attacks on humans are rare, the scientist explained in the major French newspaper The Avant-Garde. Humans do not usually stumble upon the sharks' menu.

The researcher points out that there have been “no serious attacks” on people on the beaches of the Canary Islands so far. The predatory fish prefer deeper waters. Most recently, in 2017, a young shark was born to a small shark on a beach in Gran Canaria, but was only slightly injured. However, every summer, smaller or sick sharks occasionally stray into bathing bays in the Canary Islands, which are then temporarily closed for safety reasons.

Only recently, a hammerhead shark was sighted near the coast of the island's capital, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. The island authorities then reassured holidaymakers and island residents by saying: “Sometimes we have visitors in our waters.” This is a good sign for the quality of the water and the biodiversity in the sea around the islands.”