Transcript of Episode 10

A Bathing Accident

For Alfredo Cutajar it was a glorious homecoming, as his little motor boat approached Wied-Iz-Zurrieq. Entering the narrow passage that led to the harbour, limestone slopes curved high on either side- an ancient entrance which gave the area its name- ‘the valley of the blue’. Alfredo, nearly home, navigated past the brightly coloured luzzi and fregatini- the traditional fishing boats, whose pretty pastel colours decorated the deep blue waters of the inlet. Earlier that morning, the 17th of April 1987, a fellow villager of Alfredo’s, Vince D’Amato, had gone out to check the baited lines he had set the day before, near the tiny island of Filfla. As many men from the village of Wied-Iz-Zurrieq had done for centuries, they both made their living from the sea, working the waters off the south-west of Malta. Swordfish and tuna were in season in Spring and the prized catch for locals, fetching high prices in the busy fish markets of the Mediterranean island. When D’Amato tugged on the line he felt excitement, certain he’d caught something big. His intuition was confirmed when the sturdy longline strained. But then to Vince D’Amato’s surprise, it snapped, before becoming entangled in the fishing gear of Alfredo Cutajar. Peering over the side of his boat, Alfredo saw a huge white mass rising from the depths. A long battle for survival was just about to begin.   

As Alfredo pulled up to the boatyard at the foot of Wied-Iz-Zurrieq later that morning, shouts in Maltese of kelb-il-bahar, ‘sea dog’, drew an excited crowd from the village. Those gathered stood around in astonishment, as they examined what the fisherman had brought home with him. Half out of the water, lying on its back and tangled in lines, was a shark that appeared larger than the five-metre boat. Attempts to land the creature failed when the village winch strained, then stalled, under its enormous weight. The shark was recognisable to more experienced seamen as kelb-il-bahar abjad- the white shark. The creature was set down on the slippery rocks at the water’s edge while the fishermen planned an alternative. In the meantime, a camera had appeared from someone’s home to capture the momentous event. Happily, the hero of the day, offered to pose with his catch. It was, incredibly, the second time Alfredo Cutajar had caught a great white shark- the first being thirteen years before- and from that day on he would be known to fellow villagers by the nickname ‘Son of God’. What Alfredo Cutajar didn’t know as he put his head between the shark’s open jaws for the perfect shot, was that the enormous animal was still alive… Luckily for Alfredo, all of the shark’s energy had been spent from the struggle at sea, and its jaws remained apart. The fortunate fisherman escaped unscathed from his act of bravado, but the notion that no one had ever been so unlucky in Maltese waters was, in fact, not the case.  

It was a warm, hazy Friday afternoon on the 20th of July, 1956. Tony Grech, a young Maltese man was strolling along the beach at St. Thomas Bay, just south of Malta’s capital, Valletta. Squinting through the sunshine he recognised a familiar, friendly face- that of his former English teacher at the Valletta Naval Technical School, Mr. Smedley. Grech, at 18, had graduated from the institute and had found work at the Dockyard, but remembered his old teacher fondly. On seeing him on the shore, he decided to stroll over to say hello and catch up. Jack Smedley had first come to Malta with the Royal Navy in and around the years after the Second World War, but had chosen to stay on, charmed by life on the sunny island. Living with his wife Gladys in a seaside apartment, Smedley loved sea bathing and spent much of his free time pursuing that pleasure. Life on the island was rustic and distinctly old world and it suited him perfectly. He would often run into current or former students outside of school hours as he went about his day. Relatively young at only forty, Smedley was in their eyes a popular and approachable older figure. He was someone they looked up to, which was clear from the way students would linger at his desk to chat, long after the school bell had gone. Though Malta had long been under British rule, many young Maltese like Tony Grech would typically learn English as a second language and Mr. Smedley made this easier with his patience and sense of humour. He had even helped the class set up their own newspaper, which had been a great success. Glad to have some company that afternoon, Jack Smedley invited his former pupil to join him on a swim, and Grech eagerly agreed.  

As the pair swam out into the bay, they chatted and enjoyed the panoramic views of the pretty fishing village of Marsascala. Smedley had got to know the area well and suggested they swim towards Il Ponta tal Munxar, a stunning headland at the south-east of St. Thomas Bay. Smedley and Grech turned towards the chalky white cliffs, gleaming bright in the distance and set off in that direction with leisurely strokes, side by side. While lost in a daydream and the hypnotic glint of the sunshine off the water, Tony Grech suddenly felt a bump…

The two men had swum into each another’s path. Pushing a few feet apart with a laugh, they turned off again towards the headland. Grech facing towards shore, had just started swimming a leisurely side stroke, when all of a sudden he heard a shout of ‘Look out!’ over his shoulder. Spinning round to where he’d heard his old teacher’s voice, he saw nothing but blue sea. He then felt himself being bumped firmly in the chest. Glancing down with his head still above the surface, he saw a huge marine creature just below, pushing him aside. As it manoeuvred past him he reached his hands underwater and felt its body moving by. The large dark shadow passed and a second later Jack Smedley burst up again on the other side of Tony Grech, his face contorted, fists clenched, and hunched over in pain. Twisting, as if trying to resist being pulled downwards, he managed to say ‘help me, help me’, before he sank below the surface once again, as if sucked down in a whirlpool. The area of water where he had been just a moment before turned crimson.    

Then there was only stillness and Grech was left totally alone in the water. His shock gave way to fear, a chill running down his spine. Automatically, he turned and swam as fast as he could for shore. There a crowd had started to gather, after seeing a struggle way out in the bay. Grech only slowed as he stumbled into the shallows, feeling his feet touching the sandy bottom. ‘Is he drowned?’ the crowd asked the panting young man, as he staggered out of the sea. In a state of shock, unable to process what he’d witnessed, Grech just nodded- ‘yes’. Some onlookers had seen a large fin and tail, which the police noted when they arrived on the scene. A fourteen year old boy claimed to have seen the same from a headland overlooking the bay. Nearby fisherman also came forward, reporting having earlier seen what they thought to be a large shark swimming past their boats, heading in the direction of Il Ponta tal Munxar. A motorboat was soon readied and a shellshocked Tony Grech was ushered on board to lead them back to where Jack Smedley had disappeared. Arriving at the exact spot, there was no sign left of the teacher- or of what had taken him. Further attempts with dive teams would turn up nothing either, and two days later on the 23rd, with heavy hearts, all search efforts were finally called off.  

The rarity and strangeness of the event was clear in the evidence given by Tony Grech, referring simply to ‘the fish’ in his statements to the press and authorities. The contrasting dark upper and the ‘greyish white’ belly of this huge ‘fish’ described by Grech is instantly recognisable to many people today as a great white shark. But for the young Maltese man it was an alien being. For the Maltese people, shark attacks were something that usually happened a world away, in another British colony- Australia. The unheard of occurrence caused a wave of panic across the tightly-connected island community. Shark sightings became commonplace in the weeks after, with sirens used to evacuate beaches in Sliema, Valetta and other locations. Headlines in The Times of Malta told of ‘The Shark Menace’ and ‘Lurking Danger’. A £30 reward was offered for anyone to catch the shark that killed Jack Smedley, and traps were set all along the coast. A bemused letter to The Times questioned this offer, asking if the shark, once caught, would have to ‘be tried by jury to establish whether it is the guilty one’, before the reward could be paid out.

From the pulpit, Catholic priests were encouraged to warn parishioners of the dangers of sea swimming to prevent any repeat of the terrible incident. Most heeded the advice initially. But the people of Malta were, in every sense, caught between a rock and a hard place, due to the fact the rugged island had hardly any swimming pools and no rivers or lakes to speak of. Aquatic competitions, like the water polo league, had to be cancelled and with temperatures in July and August soaring, there was even a call for a shark cull. However, gradually the panic and fear faded with the passing of time, and the event receded to become simply a curious tale in the annals of the island’s history.   

A larger boat eventually arrived at Wied-Iz-Zurrieq on that April day in 1987. It brought Alfredo Cutajar’s shark, now deceased, around the headland to the larger port of Marsaxlokk. There, an industrial crane was needed to lift the more than two and a half tonnes of bulk. Once fully out of the water, the full extent of its size was apparent. Some photographs from the day certainly made use of perspective to exaggerate the size, but there is no doubt that to bystanders it was an astounding sight. John Abela, a local shark obsessive, was one of them, and on the harbour in Marsaxlokk he had sufficient access to compile some biological notes. Abela noted on examining the insides, that the female had recently given birth to as many as ten pups. For the long eighteen month pregnancy, a mother-to-be normally eats little and following the birth, she needed to feed. What followed was a feast. In her stomach was found a blue shark, whole and nearly 2 metres in length, a two and a half meter long dolphin in three severed pieces, and a large sea turtle. Of the three, only the dolphin was in a state of putrefaction, indicating the other two animals had been recent meals. She had likely still been looking for more food when hooked on the fishermen’s lines. Rather unceremoniously, the unfortunate mother was loaded up and shipped off to a garage in Wied-Iz-Zurrieq for overnight storage. The next day she was carved up and sold in the seafood markets of Valletta.

The measurements made by John Abela at Marsaxlokk dock would become significant. At 7.14 metres, or 23 feet 5 inches, he proclaimed that the largest great white shark ever measured had just been found in Malta. In previous decades, it would commonly be stated in news and media that great whites could grow to up to 9 metres, or 30 feet long. Previous claims on the record even went far beyond those measurements. An 11 metre, or 36 foot long, great white was landed in the 1870’s in Port Fairy, Australia, but that measurement later turned out to be a gross miscalculation. A reported 40 foot beast from the Azores of Portugal, was later dismissed as ‘fisherman’s tales’. And one record challenger from the 1930s, apparently measuring over 11 metres in New Brunswick, Canada, wasn’t even a great white shark, but a misidentified basking shark. Both the Port Fairy and New Brunswick specimens managed to hang onto a place in The Guinness Book of Records for quite a few decades, before finally being scratched off.

Other more plausible claims have come from all around the world up until the end of the last century- Australia, South Africa, Senegal, Kenya, Italy, Canada and Cuba- each one intensely debated and scrutinised over measurement method, photographic scale and reference, and many other academic points. The Malta specimen in 1987 was no different, with John Abela’s evaluation and Alfredo Cutajar’s claim a few years later that it had been larger still, both apparent world records. But they would face sustained scrutiny. By 1995 in a TV interview, Cutajar had revised down to 7 metres, and in a later taped phone interview with the BBC, Abela admitted that his method might have been mistaken. No point of agreement has been found over the Malta shark’s exact size, and to this day debate continues over which is the largest ever great white shark. It appears an impossible task, but most scientists working in the area are broadly in agreement that between 6 to 7 metres would appear to be the very upper limit.

Since the growth of shark tagging programs and increased conservation, this discussion has become far more civilized, largely taking place over living rather than dead sharks. Studies suggest around 5 metres would constitute a standard fully grown length, few going above that mark, but with females generally outgrowing males. Conservationists have in recent times expressed fears that the effects of overfishing, habitat damage and climate change- combined with the long, slow life cycle of great whites- means that some of the old giants discovered in the 20th century may be much scarcer today. These concerns were eased somewhat by the appearance first in Guadalupe in 2013, then in Hawaii in 2019, of the largest shark ever filmed- ‘Deep Blue’. Her enormous girth, either from pregnancy or just recent gorging on a whale carcass, dwarfs divers and her length has been convincingly estimated at just over 6 metres or 20 feet- with signs that she may not yet be fully grown.  

 Hanging on a wall of Malta’s Zabbar Sanctuary Museum, an aged watercolour by an artist named Portelli, depicts a maritime disaster. In choppy seas, two men cling desperately to each end of an overturned fishing boat, as two others in another vessel row to their rescue. Beyond the survivors, a pair of fins curve up skyward out of the dark, moody waters. Overhead, in a break of light through the clouds, a Madonna and child sit, watching passively over the chaotic scene. The painting is believed by some local historians to detail an event that took place at Munxar Reef, Marsascala in 1890. The two individuals shown awaiting rescue are Carmelo Delia and Carmelo Arela, stranded in the wake of their boat being overturned by a powerful sea monster.

Nowhere to be seen in the image are father and son, Salvatore and Agostino Bugeja who were also said to be part of the fishing party. Accounts vary as to their fates- some recording them drowning, others that they were both consumed by the sea creature which had sunk the boat. In retrospect, the fins witnessed and later portrayed in Portelli’s painting may well have belonged to a great white shark. A sighting of one, drawn to animal carcasses floating near the site of the sinking, was recorded three days after the supposed occurrence. Owing to the basic level of communications in the 19th century, and the amount of time passed since, it’s hard to separate fact from fiction in the many varying accounts of the sea monster of Munxar Reef in 1890. What is more certain, is that eight years after the supposed inspiration for Portelli’s watercolour, a great white was caught in a tuna trap in Mellieha, off the north tip of the main island. The enormous cadaver, over 1400 kilos, was transferred to the capital of Valletta and put on display to the public for a small entrance fee.

The presence of sharks in Malta’s historical records runs further back through the previous centuries. In the Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque periods, the island was at the centre of the Mediterranean trade in shark teeth, which were widely believed to have medicinal and anti-venom properties. In 1647, Giovanni Francesco Abela, a nobleman from Valetta, recorded in his Descriptions of Malta a ‘terrifying marine monster with double rows of teeth’, which had been washed up on the island after a storm. In the country’s oral folklore ‘is-silfjun’, a whale-sized shark, also features- such stories often blurring the lines between history and myth. Throughout the 20th century, only very sporadic sightings, snaggings and catches of great white sharks occurred in Malta, usually many years, and often decades apart.     

In spite of the rarity of sightings, the Globetrotters Dive Guide on Malta and Gozo claims that the deep body of water between Malta and Sicily may hold the world’s second largest shark population. It’s also been surmised by some marine biologists that the Sicilian Channel from Sicily to Tunisia- also taking in the Italian island of Lampedusa- is a white shark nursery, with pregnant mothers and new-borns both having been sighted within the zone. However, like so much about the species, the specifics of its breeding and reproduction in the Mediterranean Sea remains largely unknown. The Mediterranean lineage, even by the standards of the white shark, is extremely elusive. One possible reason for this is the regional difference in common prey. In most parts of the globe where these predators live, a main component of the adult diet is pinnipeds, such as seals and sea lions, which are abundant in coastal areas. In South Africa or California, hunting these blubbery mammals draws white sharks into shallower waters- hence a greater chance of sightings or interactions with humans. In the Mediterranean on the other hand, the diet of white sharks often consists of dolphins, tuna and other larger fish or sharks. The hunt for such prey usually takes place in deeper seas. This reduces the odds of humans coming into contact with them to such an extent that it comes as a surprise to many to learn that the Mediterranean is in fact their home- or has been for over 450,000 years since a small group took a wrong turn into the Straits of Gibraltar and proceeded to breed in that sea. They have been dwelling there ever since, much longer than any human settlement.

But it’s human activity that now threatens their continued existence- overfishing has damaged tuna stocks and other food sources, depriving Mediterranean great whites of their prey. Ocean Care, a conservationist group, notes a decline of between 52 and 96% in some regions of the Med, and that its population of white sharks is listed as ‘critically endangered’ on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. As is the case with most species dwelling in the Mediterranean, arguably the world’s most depleted sea, there are few encouraging signs of that situation changing any time soon.

An embossed plaque was commissioned by the local council of Marsascala in 2003, in memory of ‘a respected and popular teacher’. Also marked, further down, is a vague allusion to the cause of Jack Smedley’s death- ‘lost in a bathing accident in St. Thomas Bay’. This lack of detail may be partly explained by Malta’s reliance on tourism, but it also hints at some contention around what exactly happened on that summer afternoon in 1956. So unprecedented, and never thereafter repeated, was the incident, that stories have emerged to try to offer an alternative explanation. On social media amongst some Maltese citizens, there has been credence given to the belief that Jack Smedley was assassinated by Russian agents in a Cold War conflict- a conspiracy theory which has even been echoed by some prominent shark researchers and journalists based in Malta. Suggesting Smedley was an undercover agent working for MI-5, alternate versions tell of a mini sub or divers poisoning or abducting the Englishman from below the waves of Thomas Bay. Like many conspiracy theories, it only gained ground decades after the event, as eyewitnesses’ died or their memories faded, and details were re-examined looking for holes in a tragedy that was hard to swallow.

For one, questions have been raised by some sceptics over Tony Grech’s description of his hands feeling something under water, in his description, ‘like the back of a wet horse’. If it was a shark shouldn’t its skin have felt rough? Well, while shark skin is made up of tiny teethlike plates which are sandpapery rough, it is only when they are rubbed in one direction. Running the opposite way, from head to tail, the skin can feel much smoother and sleeker. Considering too the brevity and shock of the encounter, Tony Grech’s comparison should not raise too many red flags. Two days after, The Sunday Times of Malta printed an interview with the young dock worker, and in it he was certain- he had seen a large black fish that was greyish white underneath, and in the aftermath, a pool of blood forming on the surface. That same front page article also mentioned fins having been observed by onlookers at a distance, supporting his account. All in all, Grech’s version of events was the same as he gave to police and other authorities, and there was simply no reason for him to have entirely fabricated it.     

Decades later, for the 1995 documentary Jaws of the Med, British biologist Ian Fergusson tracked down Tony Grech. In an interview on a boat anchored in St. Thomas Bay, he once again recounted his memories from almost forty years before. Fergusson listened, and drawing on his expertise of shark behaviour, developed a theory of what had occurred that day. In his reimagining, the bay, which was often fished inshore for tuna, had looked an inviting location to a large great white shark. The presence of these hunters in and around tuna nets, or tonnara, had been sporadically recorded by fishermen in the bay over the years. Similar behaviour has been observed in other nearby Mediterranean countries like Libya and Italy, as well as further afield in Tunisia and Turkey. Having lost track of its intended prey that afternoon, the shark was hanging around in the bay when it happened to see two figures swimming on the surface. For whatever reason it decided then to close in on them. This unfortunate sequence of events would lead to the taking of Jack Smedley’s life right before Tony Grech’s eyes. The survivor suspected that their splashing and vigorous swimming had attracted the shark, but he refused to attribute blame, instead seeing it as a tragic accident of nature.

The standing of the great white shark in Malta has advanced much since the days when they were treated as a mere trophy for fishermen. In 1997, Maltese dive instructor and shark enthusiast, Alex Buttigieg, set up a website called Sharkman’s World, dedicated to education, advocacy and conservation. Around this time Buttigieg, known to many admirers as ‘Sharkman’, also began a campaign to legally protect the great white. As a result, in 1999, the government of Malta passed an environmental protection act. It banned the fishing or hunting of the great white shark, as well as the basking shark, in the island’s waters. In doing so it become the first country in Europe to pass such a law, with many of its European neighbours since following its lead to protect an important part of the Mediterranean’s marine ecosystem. Then, in 2006, the European Union Fisheries Council came on board, prohibiting fishing, retaining or landing of white sharks by its member states. In the two decades since Malta’s ground-breaking law however, there have been no credible sightings of white sharks around the island nation. An encounter with a windsurfer in 2010 and a glimpse from a jetski in 2018 are amongst those stories reported but lacking in substance. Sharklab Malta, a research group, has recorded 88 investigative dives around the island of Filfla over the past three years, but has failed to find any sign of them either. Considering the breadth of the Mediterranean Sea and its estimated population of perhaps fewer than five hundred great whites, that should not come as much of a surprise. And for now, in the Maltese waters they have occasionally called home, the wait for their return goes on.