Mum’s choice words when diver sons went chasing sharks
WHEN Sydney brothers Kurt and Jai Kiggins laid eyes on a great white shark for the first time on Saturday, it was staring them directly in the face from less than a metre away.
NSW
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WHEN Sydney brothers Kurt and Jai Kiggins laid eyes on a great white shark for the first time on Saturday, it was staring them directly in the face from less than a metre away.
That was after keen ocean photographer Kurt, 26, learnt that a floating whale carcass spotted near Wattamolla Beach had enticed three large sharks into the shallow water to feast on it.
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He and his younger brother made a beeline straight for the Royal National Park, on Sydney’s southern fringe, to swim with the apex predators while they dined.
It was a decision their mother Lee was extremely unhappy about.
“Mum had some words that can’t be printed for us and she was calling us the whole way down,” Kurt said.
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When the brothers and their two friends arrived at the beach, terrified bystanders screamed at the daring divers warning them there were sharks in the water, not knowing that was exactly the reason they had come.
“People on the land were screaming at us not to go in, saying the beach was closed, but I said I was going to swim with them and when we got down there and saw them we just started putting everything on.”
The group took turns diving and filming in the freezing cold water, taking rests whenever the sharks were momentarily spooked away from the carcass.
It was Jai who was confronted with one of the giant killers of the sea during his first dip.
“It was definitely scary seeing a great white for the first time up that close, and when it came up to Jai and got right in his face and he had to poke it gently with the spear to let him know he wasn’t food.”
The Lilli Pilli locals are avid divers and fishermen, with Kurt saying their experience in the ocean and their tenacious research on the subject gives them the ability to read the behaviour of the animals to avoid attacks.
“We’ve swum with whales, mako sharks, marlin, tuna, dolphin fish — but this was our first time even seeing a great white,” Kurt said.
“I want to try and swim with an orca next.”
So did the amazing underwater vision, photographs and drone shots pacify the brother’s worried mother Lee?
“She doesn’t care — the good footage made her even more angry,” Kurt said.
