As I've heard it your best bet is to go for the face, which at best will buy you 10 minutes while all the other sharks within X distance come in to help. Hopefully at that point you've been rescued, or know some serious water-fu.

I'd have to fight too. No way I could just sit and wait for it to happen.

I didn't think sharks worked together like that. I always thought they were pretty much loners, and they would prefer to fight each other as much as anything else.

I was going to say it reminded me of one episode of South Park with all the stupid dads and the questions they would ask when Mr. Garrison's father asked his friends if they would molest their own son to save his life. Then they went on to ask questions like "if someone put a gun to your head while having sex with you, would you have sex with your mother?"

"If someone was having sex with me with a gun to my head and the only way to save my fathers life would be to have sex with my mother....I'd have sex with myself."

Sharks don't hunt in packs. However, they can smell blood at incredible distances, and won't attack each other if an easy meal (you) is thrashing around bleeding.

Anyway, I was just reading a book about sharks' electrical capabilities. I guess they have sensors in their nose which can detect up to .5 volts or amps or whatever is really small. They can hunt fish by detecting the small amounts of electricity it takes to pass signals down the nervous system. Thus, I'll just bring 20 9 volt batteries with me, and throw them randomly. Hopefully by the time he eats all those, I'll be out of the water.

It'd prolly be smarter to bring a spear gun or something though. Hrumpft.

Anyway, I'd fight. I know I couldn't win. What you see on the Discovery channel isn't half as fearsome as real attacks. I don't know. It just isn't natural to let another animal attack you, without attempting to beat the shit out of it.

Speaking of the Discovery channel. I saw recently that Great Whites could jump out of the water to attack prey (i.e. a seal on a piece of ice floating in the water). Some could even jump high enough to land in boats. Now that is some scary shit. How would it be to be attacked by a shark and not even be in the water!

I would pop a crazy erection and sword fight the beast until a blonde haired blue eyed mermaid came to rescue me, then she would give me a jellyfish helmet so I could breathe and would take me back to her kingdom where I find out she is the princess and now im a guest of honor and get to sleep with hundreds of mermaids and eat salt water taffy all day.

FIGHT!

Because honestly, I'll probably live.

I just saw tomb raider 2 and she punches a shark in the face. Looked pretty easy to me, so I would just do that. haha.

I'd take that shark out Pinnochio style, get in his mouth then in the stomach and tear em apart from the inside......................oh wait, Pinnochio didn't do that.

I came within 5 feet of some kind of coral shark in a coral reef while scuba diving one time off the keys of Florida. It was only 4 feet long though. Didn't look like much of a threat the way it was swimming, but still it suprised me a little.

http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/Shark_20defence


Using this new information, I have reformed the question:

Hypothetical-
So your <s>swimming in</s> <b>standing on</b> the <s>ocean</s> <b>beach</b> and there is a <s>Great White Shark</s> <b>coconut</b> heading your way. There is no way you are gonna survive the encounter. Would you rather
a) have the horrible surprise of being attacked with no foreknowledge.
b) Watch the <s>shark</s> <b>coconut</b> coming towards you, knowing your chances are grim, and try and fight it as it <s>eats</s> <b>hits</b> you?


Yes, I do realize that the coconut statistic is likely fictional, regardless, the annual number of shark deaths worldwide is low. Around 54 annually it seems for the last decade.

However, were I to be in this situation, I think I would choose Trilidon's tactic.

Well according to the new Tomb Raider movie:

Great White sharks, upon being punched in the snout, immediately carry their assailant to the surface of the water for their safety. Additionally, they help alleviate any discomfort or The Bends. Sharks are great.

This was taken from the CHUD.com movie review btw.

I would try and humiliate the shark by exposing it's fear and weakness to it's friends

asdf is quite correct.

though, he lives in houston, so i dunno if you want to trust him, regardless.

many sharks out there at the Astrodome, asdf?

435435
 

of couse. Your life is in danger what else could you do? Id probbaly kick its stomach.

That is fucking hilarious!!!! :lol:


I would go for the eyes.....followed by a horizontal and vertical nose slap....and throw in a round about fist to the noggin....nyuk, nyuk, nyuk.......

try and poke its eyes out i guess

I would just die, i would be so scared, my heart would just stop beating. end of story, less pain that way too...if i somehow didnt pass out/die, i would probably start praying and then *try* and punch it in the nose/eyes, but im weak, so i'd just get eaten whole..

I think I'd definitely want to know so I can put up some sort of fight. Maybe you can take an eye from the bugger. :crazy:

For anyone that goes fishing, you would know what a bangstick is. Its a long rod with a case and firing pin at the end. U put a shotgun shell into it and its used for killing sharks in the water. Well they cost about 20 bucks and you can do alot of damage with them. Don't leave home without it =)


http://www.mpoetc.org/Newsletters/20...hs/Bangst4.jpg

I revisited this thread and realized just how silly some of this discourse sounds. An insteresting thing I am noticing here, alot of people would just not fight, but succumb to the "inevitable," yet life wants to live. It is part of it, survival instinct, propagate the species and all that rot....

I assume those that said they would just curl up and die would also not move out of the way of a runaway bus/train/etc. What do you have to lose in fighting? possibly living in a disfigured state? It's still alive... which is not dead. Dead means game over. Finished.

i'd shot it with my laser gun

You people who think that you'd fight against it do realize that you're just fantasizing, right? I sure hope so.

LINKY

LINKY

That is to say, you wouldn't even see the shark coming. Furthermore, this damned thing can grow up to about 30 feet long, and can weigh about 4.5 tons. That is to say, think of something that weighs as much as 3.5 cars, heading towards you at around 25 to 35 miles per hour. Even if you got insanely lucky and landed a punch on its nose, your whole hand would be completely shattered. This isn't even mentioning the amount of displacement produced by its massiveness and speed. You also can't do that silly cliché of dodging it and grabbing onto it's fin. If you got really lucky, you might dodge it successfully, but the amount of force slamming onto your hands as you grasp onto its fin might likely rip your arms out of their sockets ;)

If I'm wrong about any of this, just let me know! :thumbsup:

exactly how big is the shark ?

Well- yeah- with those figures you're fucked- but christ- if I'm gona become snack food I at least want to make it work for the meal- maybe at least give the beast indegestion- So the fuck with it - fight for all your worth- then at least maybe you qualify to go to valhalla or some cool afterlife- you know the drill- you're up in heaven or wherever, surrounded by clouds listening to the choir invisable talking with your fellow deaders and the usual question comes up- what got you- your answer is "I died fighting with a great white shark" instant babe magnet.....

of course a better answer is to thrust steve irwin (the crocodile hunter) in front of you... "Crikey, thems some big teeth on em, now watch as I subdue the beast.. oh Christ me leg! this bugger bit me leg clean off"...

I'd rather see it coming and be prepared to fight for life. If I'm going to feel its bite anyway, I'd rather be the one to bite first!

having freshly watched "Anatomy of a shark bite" on Discovery..... it looks like one doesn't have enough time to effectively fight...very unlike the movies.

yea but like castex said: punch it on the nose.

if u dont fight at all, it takes u as prey. if u fight back, it will most likely respect u as a predator, and if u are too much trouble it will go away (like if it just got punched in the nose)

same thing with bears, if a male is coming after u he wants dinner, fight him. But females are protecting cubs, so run.

I'd fight it, even though the chances of survival are slim...

For these very reasons, I prefer to avoid swimming in the ocean, so if I'm in the ocean, it's because I fell out of a boat. I'd just scream to my friends on the boat to get me the hell out of the water.

Of course, if I'm stupid enough to fall out of a boat, then I deserve to get eaten. This in no way reflects on my feelings of all the stupid people who have fallen out of boats.

If it's on the surface and you can see it, it's just coming in out of curiosity. Swim purposefully away from it, trying not to splash too much. Keep it in sight as best as possible and try to avoid it. It's when you don't see it that you're dead.

The snout is supposedly sensitive but that's also where the teeth are so I'd try to avoid that area as best I could. The skin of the shark is like sandpaper so even if it grazes you you're gonna get ripped up and you'll start to bleed.

Now, if we're talking movie ending to my life, I guess I would take the scuba cylinder off my back (after all, the only reason I'd be in the ocean is if I were diving) jam it in his mouth and shoot at it with the rifle I just happened to have along.

seems kinda like a question that states would you rather die in your sleep or in a horrible fire. I think life is so precious that even pain is sometimes preferred to dying so any last feelings would probably still be life, but on the other i don't see any reason to suffer. So i guess take me when i'm not looking so my last experiences wont be so horrible. Instead my last memories could be viewing the beautiful reef.

Id try the nose thing. I mean, might as well fight it.

I am all about that, or better yet, hope that two sharks would attack me then i could play them against each other.

Sharks dont typically eat people, because we arent like seals which they do typically eat. They can smell the blood, and might come over, take a nibble. But the reason most people dont die is because they dont want to eat us.

I don't see how you'd be able to punch a shark or cover its eyes for that matter. You'd have to be one hell of a strong water-treader to be able to tread water, and punch the shark with enough force to deter it. Also, with the shark coming at you so fast, you would also have to be extremely coordinated to punch/cover its eyes at the exact time that it gets next to you.

Well, if its charging you like you said, and you can see, it, just put your fist out. The inertia of your body, versus the energy it takes to move you, should give the shark a pretty good hit. And then when its stunned you could cover its eyes.

Alternatively, it would just bite off your arm. Then it would think "Hey wait a sec, this is one of those gross people-things on a surfboard" and leave as you bled to death before making it to shore. Alternatively, it would tear you to shreds and eat you. But yeah, I think I'd try to fight it off, however little effect it would actually have.

"You're arm's off!"
"No it's not!"
"Yes it is, look, its over there in the water!"
"Come at me, ya pansy!"

the fight wouldnt even last a minute anyway, so i think i would just like to be taken by suprise.