Shark attack, Tahiti Beach, Elbow Cay, Abaco

[ricki]

I've spent a bit of time around Tahiti Beach, making this account somewhat surprising. It is a popular kiting spot after all. Plus people like to anchor off here. The large sand bar where folks hang out is connected to the land, separating the Sea of Abaco from the Atlantic. There is a cut into the ocean opposite this area. I suspect she was fairly close to the sand bar when she was attacked by a tiger shark. It looks like an area which might have some good shark traffic particularly to the east by the cut and yet I don't recall hearing about past accidents in this relatively small area.



More aerial images at http://marinas.com/view/overview/275...Cay_AB_Bahamas


"Tourist bitten by shark in Bahamas, flown to South Fla. hospital
Woman, 34, arrives at hospital with large bite wound

Author: Neki Mohan

A 34-year-old tourist from Dallas was bitten by a shark while swimming off Tahiti Beach on Abaco Island in the Bahamas. Lacy Webb Martin and her husband were swimming in about eight feet of water during their annual trip to the Bahamas when she said she was bitten by a shark.

"She was so calm that I thought she was kidding," Brit Martin told Local 10 News. "So I swam over there and she pulled herself up on the boat and she was missing half her back." Lacy Webb Martin arrives in South Florida after being bitten by a shark in the Bahamas.
The bite was so severe that Lacy Webb Martin fainted as she was being pulled back on the boat.

"We pulled her up on the boat and just wrapped her in a tourniquet with towels and, luckily, there was a doctor on one of the other boats from New York and she came over and they radioed the medics," Brit Martin said."

Continued at: http://www.local10.com/news/tourist-...rdale/30558404

[ricki]

Some more information has been reported via Facebook. Rush had once seen about a ten foot tiger shark near the red mark on the sat. image when kiting in the area.



Austin related that the shark attack happened a few hundred yards to the north northeast of the red mark in about 8 to 10 ft. of water. It was near sunset and fish were being cleaned in the area. That is a bad combination increasing the odds of problem shark encounters. Regular fishing cleaning in some of the Bahamian islands reliably bring in feeding sharks daily. Not sure if that is the case here or not.