18ft shark attacks beach swimmer
Elderly South African woman feared dead
Tuesday, November 16, 2004 Posted: 0950 GMT (1750 HKT)

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) -- A Great White shark estimated to be at least 18 feet long (5.5 meters) has attacked and presumably killed an elderly South African woman off a beach near Cape Town, officials said.

Tyna Webb, 77, who lived in the area, was swimming Monday off Sunny Cove in Fish Hoek when the massive shark circled her and then attacked, witnesses and officials said.

About 15 people witnessed the attack.

"All that was left was a little red bathing cap," said Paul Dennett, who witnessed the attack from his home nearby.

Dennett told the South African Press Association that he estimated the shark to be at least 18 feet long.

Rescue workers were using boats and aircraft to search for the woman's body.

"All efforts to find the lady have been exhausted by a wide and thorough search. We are hoping that police divers will be successful in their efforts," Darren Zimmerman of the National Sea Rescue Institute told the SAPA.

Crews later spotted the shark.

Great Whites often are seen in the area feeding off the large seal population.

"The shark is bigger than the helicopter ... it is huge," institute spokesman Craig Lambinon told SAPA.

Law enforcement officials advised people not to swim along the Cape of Good Hope.

A 16-year-old surfer lost his right leg in an April attack by a Great White shark in the same area.

The last confirmed, unprovoked fatal shark attack in South Africa was in 2003, according to the Florida Museum of Natural History's International Shark Attack File, which has gathered such data worldwide for decades.

The STAR - Front Page :
Shark horror rocks community
November 16, 2004
By Jo-Anne Smetherham

Cape Town's close-knit Fish Hoek community are in shock and mourning after
Tyna Webb was killed by a Great White in the first fatal shark attack in
the area in more than a century. In a horror story that took just 30
seconds to unfold and reach its terrible conclusion, 77-year-old Webb was
killed at around 7am yesterday after she had gone for her early morning
swim off Jaker's Walk on the Fish Hoek coastline.

?All that was left was a little red bathing cap," False Bay Yacht Club Rear
Commodore Paul Dennett said yesterday. Dennett had witnessed the attack
from his home about 100m away, initially thinking the shark was attacking a
seal. "Then I saw somebody in the water. There was a **** of a lot of
blood. I saw a body being shaken violently by a large shark. It then left
the woman and swam away a short distance, turned, then came back at a great
speed and hit her, taking her under the water. I never saw her again,"
Dennett said.

Brian de Jager, who works at Sunny Cove Manor, greeted the popular
pensioner every morning as he strolled along Jaker's Walk on the way to buy
the newspaper. "This morning I took my usual walk and I saw Tyna swimming.
The next minute I saw this fin coming through the water and then the
discoloration in the water. It was so quick - it was only around 30 seconds
until it all finished. She was such a lovely lady, with an amazing carriage
and grace - such a beautiful person. This is a terrible shock," De Jager
said.

Webb was a strong swimmer who disregarded the warnings of family and
friends in swimming hundreds of metres out to sea in both winter and
summer. The attack apparently happened about 150m from the shoreline.

Carla Reiman, who had often swum with Webb in the early mornings, said: "I
had just arrived on the beach and saw the trek fishermen waving a flag and
shouting from the watch point on the mountain. From the beach, I saw the
fin, then the whole shark coming out of the water. It thrashed around.
Everybody here was screaming and shouting. We are a group who swim here
every morning. I don't know that I want to be doing this any longer. We're
dumbstruck," Reiman said.

Fisherman Jeffrey Andries saw the attack through binoculars from the
fishermen's lookout on Elsie's Peak. He waved a flag to alert the
beachgoers, as he had done when he spotted sharks the previous day. "It was
about 7 in the morning. I saw the lady doing backstroke. She was swimming
directly into the path of the shark. Then I saw splashes. The shark turned,
then pulled her down under the water. I often see sharks in the bay from
here. Yesterday I saw two and notified the lifesavers," Andries said.

Yesterday morning, a Sea Fisheries vessel, two lifesaving boats and a
helicopter combed the sea searching for the body, while police divers
searched underwater. The search was called off at around lunchtime. On
Sunday, lifesavers had told swimmers to get out of the water at 11am and at
3pm after fishermen had seen sharks.

The police and emergency medics thronged to the beach yesterday. The police
boomed out warnings through a microphone to "Please get out of the water"
to the few people who tried to swim.

A relative of Webb's, who asked not to be named, described her as a
remarkable person.

"She was a teacher in Khayelitsha, and even during the state of emergency
in the 1980s, when police told white people not to go into the townships,
she would go. She followed her own mind, but she had a soft heart.

"She was very much into literature and the arts. In her retirement, she
worked for St Luke's hospice. She was helluva clever, and a very, very
special person - a moral force, someone to be proud of."

Don Ainslie, who worked with Webb at the College of Education in
Khayelitsha, said: "She was humble in the extreme and exceptionally kind -
she would give anything away to anybody. Her students adored her...

"And she was totally fearless. If somebody did something she saw as
immoral, she would tell them so."

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ November 17, 2004 02:24 AM: Message edited by: Great White ]</font>