Shark el-Sheikh: a fishy tale

This is so weird, even by Egyptian standards, that I have to share...

The beach resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, on Egypt's Sinai peninsula, is famed for its diving and snorkelling, wide beaches and high temps. But there has been a snake in paradise, or more specifically, a large shark, which has been terrorising tourists. The score stands at: oceanic whitetip shark 5 (4  injured, 1 killed), humans 0.

The Lovely Andrew sent through a link to an Austrian site quoting the governor of Sinai, Mohamed Abdel Fadil Shousha, who says locals reckon the Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad "put the murderous shark in the water to damage Egyptian tourism. [It is an idea that] cannot be ruled out."

The Accidental Tourist loves a good conspiracy theory, but notes that the Sinai peninsula is flooded with Israeli tourists taking advantage of Egypt's limping pound, and flock there for cheap sun holidays.

But wait, there's more, as MCN dropped this little link in my lap from Macedonia Online which states that the shark has since been assassinated by a Serbian tourist, dubbed Shark El Sheikh and now the new hero of Egypt.


While the hero himself, Dragan Stevic, was at the time too drunk to remember what actually happened, his friend Milovan reports that “Dragan climbed on the jumping board, told me to hold his beer and simply ran to jump. There was no time for me to react or to try to stop him, he just went for it.” He jumped, he hit the water, and complained it was too shallow, but in fact had actually landed on the shark's head, killing it instantly. Who says drinking is bad for you?


Surprisingly, the Egyptian press didn't run the story, which has since turned out to be a gory hoax, complete with fake pic: apparently this plankton-eating basking shark was snapped in the US, not Egypt.  


PS: sorry for the silence over December - this was lurking in drafts for toooo long. Happy New Year all!