Community in shock after pair of great whites attack veteran diver

Peter Clarkson, the diver feared dead after he was attacked by two great whites in South Australian waters. Photo / Supplied

Police and fisheries boats were late yesterday still searching for the body of an abalone diver who had survived one close encounter with a great white shark only to be taken by two others off South Australia on Thursday evening.

Peter Clarkson, 49, was attacked by the pair as he surfaced near a boat skippered by Howard Rodd, who survived a 50-hour swim to shore a decade ago after his boat was overturned by a freak wave.

Rodd's companion stayed with the boat and was never seen again.

On Thursday, Rodd watched in horror as the two great whites took Clarkson, a highly experienced diver with a degree in zoology who had worked for years along the coast between South Australia's Port Lincoln and Esperance in Western Australia.

"I saw the beast come up and take him," ABC radio reported Rodd as telling police. "There's no way he could have survived."

Late yesterday police said Rodd remained in shock and had provided few further details of the tragedy.

Adelaide-born Clarkson was working with Rodd from one of the aluminium-hulled boats that harvest the state's abalone fisheries, which provide 20 per cent of Australian production and earn the state more than A$50 million ($63.7 million) a year.

They were operating near Coffin Bay, a small fishing village on the western tip of the Eyre Peninsula, named for a 19th century Royal Navy Commissioner.

The region, like much of South Australia, is known for its shark population, including the protected great whites which patrol the coast on cruises of more than 6000km from Esperance to Rockhampton in north Queensland.

Great whites, protected in Australian waters, can grow to 6m in length and weigh more than two tonnes, and usually feed on squid, stingrays, other sharks and marine mammals such as seals and dolphins.

But they also attack humans more than any other species.

The area where Clarkson and Rodd were working accounts for five of the 11 South Australian shark deaths in the past 25 years. An average of one person a year is killed by sharks around Australia.

South Australia's abalone divers frequently use safety cages or devices such as the Shark Shield, a South African invention using electrical waves to repel sharks and which has been adopted by Australian Navy divers.

It is not known if Clarkson was using the device when he was attacked, but a testimonial on the Shark Shield website described an earlier terrifying encounter he had with a great white off Kalbarri in WA.

Diving at about 50m while researching a book about cowry shells, Clarkson was heading for the surface when he realised 10m away a great white was tracking his ascent.

"It was a scenario I had rehearsed in my mind a thousand times during the 27 years I have been diving, but this was the first shark of this species that I had encountered underwater," he wrote.

Both reached the surface at the same time, the shark's dorsal fin briefly flashing before turning towards Clarkson.

"Head-on, the shark was a very intimidating sight and prior to this moment I never really felt 'threatened' by its presence." he said.

"It halted 5m to 6m away from me. I had the distinct impression that the shark sensed something was 'not right' about the wetsuit-clad creature which was the focus of its interest.

"Several times, it swam out almost to the limit of visibility (15m) before returning and stopping again at the same distance from me."

Clarkson waited, and the shark finally turned away.

His presumed death has devastated the community around Coffin Bay, and friends and abalone divers across the Great Australian Bight.

"The shock's settled in the town at the moment, I think, amongst a few of the guys that are into shell diving and abalone diving," Mark Payne, a close friend, told the ABC in Esperance.

South Australian Abalone Industry Association president Jonas Woolford said the diving community was reeling from the tragedy.

"They're all extremely upset about it," he told the ABC.

"I think every diver will be asking themselves the question, how can we do things safer?"