{"id":621,"date":"2016-08-31T16:12:45","date_gmt":"2016-08-31T14:12:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.whenitswindy.com\/wp\/?p=621"},"modified":"2016-08-31T16:41:55","modified_gmt":"2016-08-31T14:41:55","slug":"apex-predators-tuktuks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.whenitswindy.com\/wp\/?p=621","title":{"rendered":"APEX PREDATORS & TUKTUKS"},"content":{"rendered":"

Warning<\/strong> This post\u00a0 deals with shark attack,\u00a0snakes and tuktuks. If you are not happy about any of these subjects please stop reading now. Also it is a little longer than the usual post.<\/em><\/p>\n

AGAINST ALL THE ODDS TWICE<\/strong><\/p>\n

Before setting off on our travels anywhere, I’ll often look for the lists of poisonous snakes or whether crocodiles frequent the local lagoons, what fatal tropical diseases might infect us and which kind of spiders might be lurking under the bed. It’s not that I’m truly concerned by them but more that they fascinate me as we don’t have to deal with them back home in Britain.<\/p>\n

The fact of the matter is that these\u00a0 creatures are usually difficult to find or see, even if you are specifically looking for them.\u00a0To be bitten or attacked by one is far from likely. On the other hand the severity of the consequences\u00a0of an attack\u00a0could be\u00a0nasty to fatal. If we assess this risk logically rather than emotionally we find all of the above to be low to medium risks at worst.<\/p>\n

Sri Lanka has one of the highest death rates per capita\u00a0due to\u00a0snake bite in the world. On our travels we’ve seen the grand total of only 5 snakes. The only venomous one couldn’t get away from us fast enough, much to my disappointment. I only managed a blurry photo of a 2m long cobra.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0traffic overseas offers far higher risks\u00a0when just crossing the road or taking a ride in\u00a0a bus or a tuk-tuk for that matter.<\/p>\n

\"Tuktuk<\/a>
Tuktuk wizzes past.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It’s\u00a0quite\u00a0likely\u00a0that you may be involved in a\u00a0road traffic\u00a0accident whilst travelling. The severity of these accidents\u00a0can obviously be\u00a0high to fatal. Making these risks medium to high<\/p>\n

Road traffic interactions\u00a0are so common place however that we often don’t give\u00a0them a second thought.<\/p>\n

Two nasty situations have occurred so far during our stay here in Sri Lanka that most certainly could have resulted in serious injury or death. Both as it happens passed without injury. The odd thing is that\u00a0one incident plays\u00a0heavily on my\u00a0mind whilst the other has \u00a0faded away quickly.<\/p>\n

The first and least memorable of the two was when our \u00a0tuktuk driver crashed head on\u00a0with a motor bike. How no one was hurt I have no idea. Did I even think twice before getting into the next tuktuk? No did I heck. The chances of it happening again are not unlikely given the crazed driving habits of Sri Lankan tuktuk drivers.<\/p>\n

Second of the two was a little more harrowing.\u00a0I had a\u00a0brief but significant\u00a0interaction with a large\u00a0fish…<\/p>\n

\"There<\/a>
There are no sharks in the lagoon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I was riding my\u00a0foilboard or kite hydrofoil\u00a0\u00a0out in the sea\u00a0next to Kappalady lagoon. Whilst attempting a foil tack I fell from my board.\u00a0 Several seconds later whilst about to bodydrag I received a heavy blow to my thigh from beneath. The force of which left\u00a0me shocked and confused for a short time.\u00a0 This confusion was ended when a 2m long\u00a0shark breached right next to me.\u00a0\u00a0At the realisation of what was happening to me, that ever useful and delicious neurotransmitter adrenalin kicked in hard. My board was several meters away which I needed back on my feet pronto. The few\u00a0metres bodydragging to my\u00a0foilboard\u00a0felt like an eternity\u00a0spent as a\u00a0giant fishing lure expecting\u00a0another attack at any moment. More or less safely back on my board the fear induced adrenalin was still at its peak as a result I have never returned to shore so fast, with such purpose or with such jelly legs. The guys on the beach listened to my story with looks of disbelief however they could also see that I was pretty agitated. \u00a0Fortunately the impact left me with only a bruised thigh, two holes in my shorts and a revised sense of my mortality.<\/p>\n

I’d researched, spiders, snakes, leopards, bears, dengue and\u00a0malaria but\u00a0I forgot all\u00a0about the sharks. Apparently there are 60 known species that are found around Sri Lanka – Attacks happen but are uncommon.<\/p>\n

So the improbable happened to me twice in the same incident. A direct full speed strike from a shark and not a drop of blood spilled. Perhaps I should buy a lottery ticket.<\/p>\n

The probability that I will be attacked by a shark again is extremely remote even though I play with my hydrofoil\u00a0in the sharks environment frequently. So why does this\u00a0incident burn into the psyche so much more than the tuktuk accident?<\/p>\n

Is it because it reminds us that we are not truly the number one we so often think that we are?\u00a0.<\/p>\n

Is it familiarity? \u00a0We are so accustomed to road traffic we just accept it. Where as our interactions with snakes, sharks etc. are so infrequent that their risks rings greater alarm bells in our imagination.<\/p>\n

Or is it that\u00a0these\u00a0animals\u00a0are mostly unseen lurking in the depths or the long grass?\u00a0Their strikes being unpredictable and their presence being left to the imagination.<\/p>\n

Maybe they trigger a primal fear in us that lingers from when we were once listed on the menu.<\/p>\n

One thing that\u00a0is for certain is that we are terrible at assessing risk in our everyday lives.<\/p>\n

Another\u00a0certainty is that I will not forget\u00a0the image\u00a0of the shark as it pierced the water alongside me and leapt into the air as I floated in the indian ocean attached to a kite.\u00a0 As an ocean lover and kitesurfer this leaves me in a bit of a quandary.<\/p>\n

Logic or emotion?<\/p>\n

Right bed time for me as it’s windy and hopefully I’ll be out on the ocean again tomorrow.<\/p>\n

The outcome<\/strong><\/p>\n

This happened a couple of weeks ago but I resisted posting until I’d had time to reflect on the shark incident.<\/p>\n

I kited the very next day but in the lagoon not the sea.<\/p>\n

I kited in the sea\u00a0 one week ago without a second thought however in a different place and with a twintip board.<\/p>\n

I went to kite the sea on the hydrofoil at the same place as the attack happened and emotion was hard to overcome. My legs were like jelly for the first five minutes and my usual falls were considerably more exciting than normal.<\/p>\n

I did however face the fear and got to ride some lovely waves with the foilboard for the first time ever.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Warning This post\u00a0 deals with shark attack,\u00a0snakes and tuktuks. If you are not happy about any of these subjects please stop reading now. Also it is a little longer than the usual post. AGAINST ALL THE ODDS TWICE Before setting off on our travels anywhere, I’ll often look for the lists of poisonous snakes or … Continue reading APEX PREDATORS & TUKTUKS<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":656,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,8],"tags":[29,27,28,26,25],"class_list":["post-621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-kite","category-travel","tag-apex-predators","tag-hydrofoil","tag-kite-hydrofoil-shark-attack","tag-risk-assessment","tag-shark-attack"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.whenitswindy.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/sharkjpg.jpg?fit=650%2C366&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.whenitswindy.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.whenitswindy.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.whenitswindy.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.whenitswindy.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.whenitswindy.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=621"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.whenitswindy.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":660,"href":"https:\/\/www.whenitswindy.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621\/revisions\/660"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.whenitswindy.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.whenitswindy.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.whenitswindy.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.whenitswindy.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}