Shark Tale
A Hungarian Shark Tale, or how did I become a shark addict?
The above quoted movie is a quite recent one in this story too, so let me jump back a few decades to the start: in 1975 I was 2 years old, when the movie Jaws was released, based on Benchley's book (btw, I liked his interview on National Geographic some years ago, where he confessed he would have never published his book if he knew what hysteria it would start about sharks in general, knowing the fact that today more than 100 million sharks are slaughtered worldwide EVERY YEAR, pushing some species of this marvelous creature to near extinction!). In the good old days of the Cold War, the movies of the capitalist countries, or the "rotten West", also had several detours before they could - if at all - land in the socialist countries. Well, in this particular case, it took only 10 years to be so and here we had Jaws in Hungarian, translated simply as The Shark. As you can figure out, by that time I was 12 I had finished every single book available on the local market that had anything to do with sharks or sea creatures in general. I must say that there wasn't many, as traditionally Hungary was never a sea nation, unfortunately.
Getting back to the original question: how did I become a shark addict, my answer is: I don't know. It might be in my genes - since Darwin, I could even trace my roots further to those of the apes... -, or has to do something with my family name, which stands for Fisher(man). All I know is that by the age of 6 I wanted to be a marine biologist, or more precisely a shark expert. Again, let me remind you we are in the western part of the socialist block at that time, in Hungary, which geographically has very little to do with saltwater!
Anyway, there I was with this crazy idea and my parents luckily did support me as much as they could, which meant buying those 3-4 more or less scientific books on the subject of marine life/animals/sharks. By the time Jaws arrived on the scene, I was considered to be an expert (by Hungarian standards) onthe topic - certainly by myself and my family, who were proud of their "weird" little genius.
From Jaws to reality
I am not sure what age-restriction Jaws had, but at only 12 years of age, I certainly wouldn't have been qualified to enter the movies - especially because in those days they took asking for your ID card to see you DOB rather seriously. But hey, this was the socialist era, where abundance was lurking underneath the counters, so my uncle took me to the cinema and I remember him tipping the ticket-lady at the entrance an outrageous amount of 50 HUF (could have been around 1 USD at that time) so that I could see THE MOVIE. I was fascinated, shocked and admired the beast even more... Then came 1988, when I started my secondary studies and my English classes. Not long after the Wall came down and I became proficient enough to get some serious books on sharks in English. I remember the first one was brought to me by an American in our high school, in 1991.
That book was a true revelation with its pictures, scientific facts and figures - at the same time it was a major trauma for me to accept that officially no one has ever caught a Great White over 10 meters (or even 7) of length - a size that in my Hungarian sources was often published as a record length for that apex. Anyway, not only did I get books from the States but also contact information to universities where one could study marine biology. After corresponding with some 10 of these univiersities, I had to face the fact that undergraduate scholarships are rather rare - or at least I didn't have the right track/network for those then. My "Plan B" was to get admission to a Hungarian university (faculty of biology and English) and then apply for a (postgraduate) merit from there... Well, life was trickier than that, so I ended up studying business and economy at a college. Nevertheless, I kept on getting books on (Great White) sharks and even managed to do a scuba diving course in the mid-nineties. This later changed into freediving but for sure the underwater world remained for sure.
To cut a long story short, I never stopped to surf the net and write emails to various organizations to feed my curiosity, until one day I came across White Shark Research Institute by Craig Ferreira (at that time) and we started to correspond. It only took 3 years to finalize how someone with no official marine studies can become a volunteer on board for a month! Thus in 2005 my dream came true (after some 26 years) when I ended up in Gansbaii in June. I spent 29 unbelievable days in their volunteer program and even though it didn't mean 29 days at sea, I got all that I could have ever dreamed of - and even more... Diving with these beautiful marine creatures, to see them, touch(!) them in their own habitat and learning from those who had been dealing with sharks for their entire life! Wow! I was fortunate enough to travel back in February 2007 and even though I the had different objectives on different routes, I did manage to meet the chief executive of the Natal Sharks Board, at the organization's headquarters near Durban, where some photos were taken and a detailed interview made on sharks, shark-nets and other means of protecting both men and animals.
All in all, I suggest you to take a look at my gallery and see how I saw them beauties in South Africa. To be continued... but in any case check out my pictures in the gallery.
