Ocean Quest Dive Club

dove Sunday on the midnight express early am conditions great got a little choppy latter in the am. water temp mid 70's (finally down to wearing a skin) and vis great 60 ft +. Dove the Hutton (old papose) first lots of small fish nothing to shoot. second dive on the Shurz swam the length of the wreck and back lots of bait, albacore and aj's. got back within 100 ft of the anchor and started searching in holes for grouper, finally found a legal grouper in a hole, backed off a bit so i could shoot and hit him right behind the head. pulled the grouper out and grabed him under the gilles and ripd the gills out to kill him. Then started to get the spear out of him and string him when i felt a hard push under my right arm, though it was one of the other divers screwing with me or just kicking me - turned around to find a 6 ft sand tiger about 1 ft from my face. so i hauled off and punched him and the head as hard as i could, he took off and watched me from about 10 yds as i put my spear and fish together and when to the anchor rope. one of the Rhode Island divers on board watched the whole thing, but unfortunately did not have a camera. He said the shark just sat there and watched me for a while then al of a sudden it look like he grabbed my elbow. Once I got back on the boat found that he had punctured my bicep in 4 places, this morning turning into a nice bruise. My diving doc is calling in some antibiotics for me this morning just in case. I've been spearfishing 7 years and this is the first time one has hit me. i've had several others come at me but i always saw them first and managed to scare them off. got to watch out for theses sneaky ones who come up behind you