Newfoundland sisters get 3-metre shark surprise on family fishing trip
Amy and Allison Collins blown away by a toothy visitor near St. Brendan's
A pair of sisters from Hare Bay got an up close encounter with a shark while on a family fishing trip Saturday.
Allison Collins, 16, recorded a video of the shark coming within feet of the fishing boat her sister, father and other relatives were on near St. Brendan's.
Allison and her sister Amy Collins, 19, can be heard screaming in a moment of panic when they realized just how close the predator came to them.
We had seen an iceberg completely like flip, and everybody thought that that was hilarious because Allison was crying.- Amy Collins
"Oh my goodness, it was so cool," said Amy Collins.
"It was something that we never thought that we would see when we were fishing."
Amy Collins said the family fishes about five or six times a summer, but has never seen a shark so close.
The shark was about 10 to 11 feet long, according to Allison Collins. She figured it was attracted by blood in the water from cod fish that her father was cutting and cleaning.
The animal approached the boat just moments after one cod was pulled from the water. As Allison was shouting, her father encouraged her to get closer with the camera.
"He was very, very calm," said Allison Collins. "Meanwhile, he was screaming 'shark' so I was like 'Oh my god, Dad!"
"He never really freaked out that much because he has seen sharks of that size before.
The nervous sister
Amy Collins says she posted the video to Facebook, to chronicle her younger sister's ocean adventures.
"We posted it because a few weeks before, we had seen an iceberg completely like flip, and everybody thought that that [video] was hilarious because Allison was crying [from fear]," she said.
"So we posted it again, the shark video, because we thought that... people would find it funny."
Allison Collins says she is certainly the "nervous sister" of the two, but both are willing to hit the water again.
"It took me 16 years to see it, so maybe in another 16 years [I'll see another one]," said Allison Collins.
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