Meeting Hector
A close encounter with a 20-foot-long hammerhead shark was not on my agenda for the morning. But it was on his. That was the day that I met Hector the Hammerhead.
But as they say about sharks, it's not the ones you see that you have to worry about, it's the ones you don't see.
~ David Blaine
My first duty station in my twelve-year Navy career was on the small island of Diego Garcia, located in the middle of the Indian Ocean. It's very remote, being seven degrees south of the equator and more than 1,100 miles south southwest of the tip of India. The island itself, on a perpetual lease from Great Britain, and the U.S. Navy base there, are strategically vital in the big political and military schemes of things. As a very junior enlisted man from central Wisconsin by way of central Nebraska, however, it was simply a tropical paradise.
The island is vaguely shaped like a capital "V", with the opening pointing roughly north. Given its location, the weather is balmy right the year 'round. High temperatures rarely go above 90°F, while lows rarely dip below 75°F. Did I mention that it's a tropical island paradise?
The very deep, very dark blue waters surrounding the island for more than 1,000 miles in all directions were a strong contrast, in many ways, with the light blue, sun-bathed, warm and shallow water that ringed the lagoon in the angle of the "V". It was in those shallow waters along the inner reef that I taught myself to snorkel.
When the tide was low, you could wade out to the coral reef in most places. The lagoon bottom was mostly white coral sand, interspersed with meadows of dark-green turtlegrass and seagrass and the occasional small patch of rock and broken coral. Depending on where you entered the water, you might have to wade anywhere from 100 to 500 yards to reach the inner reef.
One particularly nice day, much like every other day on Diego Garcia (I'm really rubbing it in, aren't I?), I rode my bike a mile or two down the island to Eclipse Bay until I found a nice spot where the reef was a bit closer to the beach. I grabbed my snorkel, mask, and fins and walked out into the water. You had to watch for small stingrays while wading in that clear, shallow water, but the rays most often skated out of the way before you had any chance of stepping on them.
I was still some distance from the reef when the water got deep enough to swim. I got my feet into my flippers, slipped into the water, and snorkeled out to the deep side of the reef. The water was sparkling and clear, and the sandy bottom was visible about 20 feet below the surface, sloping down to the deeper parts of the lagoon.
Keeping the reef on my right, I cautiously swam along, watching everything as I moved. I was always a bit trepidatious about snorkeling, especially alone. Being out in the water like that isn't a natural situation for most people. Keeping your head under water, despite having the snorkel, also isn't natural. Thankfully, I was getting more used to that environment each time I went out.
The coral reef was impressive and beautiful. There were creamy yellow massive corals, green and orange brain corals, white and pinky-brown staghorn branching corals, razor sharp mushroom corals, fluffy-looking flowerpot corals, and more.
Vari-colored sea anemones lived in small clusters amongst the corals, as did shallow-water sponges, molluscs, and other stationary creatures. Crabs lurked in their nooks and crannies, hermit crabs scuttled about in their borrowed homes, and spiny lobsters occasionally darted across the seafloor.
If I really slowed down and took my time, I might see tiny seahorses hiding in the smaller branched corals or down in the turtlegrass. Spectacularly ornate spotfin lionfish prowled the coral, too, feeding on those smaller fish.
Of course there were fish of nearly every color and size, too. Small fish such as bright yellow long-nosed butterfly fish, blue-striped Empress angel fish, black-and-white striped Clark's anemone fish, and many, many more zipped through the stiff coral structures and tide-swept seaweed, feeding on whatever suited their fancy.
Big parrotfish of various kinds, heads down, munched and gnawed at the coral itself, with schools of bluestripe snapper going by in the background. In the coral wall, heads poking out, I sometimes spotted a moray eel. I tried to avoid them, as they were a bit cantankerous and unpredictable.
On flat spots amongst the coral and down on the seafloor, I would always see the crowns of spiny sea urchins, brittle sea stars, and several varieties of starfish. Various shellfish were abundant as well. Clams, spider shells, helmet shells, cowries — all were fairly common. Small octopuses lived in the coral and among the rocks.
Moving a bit further away from the coral wall, in deeper water, were the groupers and the occasional barracuda. If you were very lucky, nature might serve up a special treat and you'd see a green sea turtle or two feeding on the grasses along the bottom. Often, I'd spot a loose phalanx of small whitetip reef sharks prowling through the coral reefs. Very occasionally, I'd see a larger gray reef shark passing by — perhaps as big as six or seven feet long — but they always swam out of my way.
On this particular day, I slowly swam along the reef, stopping now and then as I spotted something particularly noteworthy. There were lots of small, medium-sized, and large fish swimming about, and things seemed normal. At one point, however, I noticed that some of the bigger fish had disappeared. Then I saw, out of the corner of my mask, a very large shadow moving along at the limit of my underwater vision, about thirty feet out from the reef. The shadow came into view, moving from my right to my left as I faced out into deeper water, my back up against the reef. The shadow moved along and moved along, and kept moving. Whatever it was, it was big! I waited for it to leave and, when it did, I cautiously continued moving along the reef.
A few minutes later, the same shadow came by again, moving in the opposite direction. It was also closer to me. In fact, it was close enough for me to see that "it" was a shark. A big shark. A very big, slow-moving hammerhead shark. When I tell you he was very big, I mean he was fucking enormous! That shark was likely twenty feet long, and his head was probably over four feet wide. This was no ordinary, everyday hammerhead. This was Hector!
I'd been on Diego Garcia for more than a year at this point and, for as long as I'd been there, I'd been hearing occasional stories about Hector the Hammerhead. He'd apparently been spotted back in the early '70s, when the first US Navy Seabees were sent to Diego Garcia to start building the communications station and the air field. In the intervening years the story of Hector grew, along with fantasies about how big he — or more likely she — was. I'd heard tall tales of lengths up to forty feet. That would make him larger than some whales. That wasn't the case. However, he was big. There was no doubt about that.
The photo above was taken from the afterdeck of the USS Ajax (AR-6) in 1980. You can see a 26-foot-long officer's boat along the top of the image, with Hector swimming by below the boat. The shark was nearly as long as that boat. This was three years before I met Hector, but he likely hadn't grown too much bigger.
I was still in the water with Hector, but my morning of snorkeling the reef didn't seem all that important any longer. The previously-fascinating reef colonies had lost their allure. I really had to get out of there, buy I had to remain calm so as not to attract his attention! Thankfully, I had at least two things working in my favor. First off, Hector wasn't hunting me. Hammerheads were relatively placid sharks. Reports about attacks on humans by hammerhead sharks are extremely rare.
Secondly, while I'd been snorkeling, the tide had continued to go out. That meant the water over the reef was shallower now than it was when I started the morning. After allowing Hector to move away from me — as if I could allow Hector to do anything — I quickly found an opening in the reef that would let me get through but was way too small for Hector. That shark needed at least four feet of water — likely quite a bit more than that — in order to cross the reef. He'd also need an opening at least six to eight feet wide to accommodate the width of his pectoral fins. My little opening was only about two feet wide and about 18 inches deep. Just big enough for me to get through, but not nearly big enough for Hector.
With my heart pounding in my chest, I slowly made my way to my escape slot and, without stirring up the water with my fins, made my way over the reef and into safety. As I was now on the shore side of the reef, the water was only about five feet deep. I swam and swam toward shore until I was in just three feet of water. I stopped swimming, got those flippers off of my feet, and waded, plowing through the water as fast as I could. I'd been safe from Hector for the past few minutes, but I wasn't going to stop until I was well out of the water.
When I reached the beach, I ran up into the line of coconut palms and grass that fronted the lagoon at that point, and collapsed onto the ground. Slowly, slowly, I regained my breath and my composure, then turned around and looked out at the lagoon.
It would have been too much to ask, too far beyond the bounds of believability, for me to claim that I saw Hector's fin go by just on the other side of the reef at that point. I didn't. But I knew he was out there.
I also had time, lying there on the sand, to understand that while I'd seen Hector, he very likely hadn't seen me. He surely knew I was there, just because I was moving around and he could sense that, but a shark's eyesight isn't that good.
Another thing I thought at that point, and that I've reminded myself about many times since, is that I was very lucky to have seen Hector at all. That event was akin to seeing a snow leopard or a blue whale. Or Sasquatch.
I've since heard and read various stories claiming that the original Hector was killed in '81, which means that my Hector wasn't Hector at all, but an impostor. Regardless, knowing that I was in the water, swimming along with an enormous hammerhead shark for even a limited amount of time, is a pretty cool claim to whatever level of fame that might bring me.
We should be afraid of sharks half as much as sharks should be afraid of us.
~ Peter Benchley
Resources