This past week was a bit much. Talk about a good, old-fashioned February; cold, wet and outrageously windy. So much so that it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realise that the fishing effort this week was pathetically low. Early on a few commercial boats made it out to their lobster gear, with varying modicums of success but the blue water fleet was pretty much confined to quarters.

It is funny how the mind remembers things. Weather like we have just endured brings to mind the sea disaster of about 30 years ago that saw a ship sink somewhere off Bermuda during a winter storm. The survivors were brought here by the US Navy who conducted the rescue from the Naval Air Station at Kindley Field (to really use some old-fashioned terminology). What was most memorable were some of the images that made the newspaper. Memorable in a macabre, nasty sort of way.

Although it was winter and the site of the sinking was in water that would have been fairly cold compared to tropical waters, the crew in the water were subjected to numerous shark attacks. One incident during the rescue process had a shark take someone just as he was being winched from the water by a helicopter. Apart from several others who succumbed to shark attack or exposure, this was particularly gruesome and one that provoked a bit of thought.

When one thinks of sharks, the thought of warm tropical waters comes to mind. Cooler, temperate waters don't really fit the image. Certainly not that painted by authors of fiction and in other tales of sea-faring lore. The shark-infested waters that are so commonly featured in books and films almost always conjures up visions of tropical islands, palm trees and clear blue waters.

In the incident recounted above, the waters certainly weren't tropical even though they were probably temperate or sub-tropical during that time of the year when they were at or near their coolest seasonal temperature. So just what were sharks doing there?

To burst a few bubbles, we have to come to grips with the fact that there are all sorts of sharks and they pretty much roam the world's oceans at all latitudes and even down to depths where humans are very unlikely to encounter them.

Simplified, sharks are predators in one way or another. Some are active, really fierce species like great whites or makos. Others are more likely to be bottom feeders or species that concentrate on smaller game. Of course, there are the real biggies, the whale shark and the basking shark which eat (for want of a better word) plankton and are not really thought of as "sharks" that are threats.

The truth is that it is the temperate regions of the world that seem to attract sharks of the "man-eating" variety. For instance, monster shark fishing is popular during the summer off the northeast coast of the United States. The real target species is the great white shark but action is had from dusky, blue and other shark species. A similar sport is pursued off Cornwall and Wales in the British Isles and there are plenty of other places where there are seasonal shark sport fisheries.

In the Caribbean and the more classical tropical location, species like the tiger shark and hammerhead are the headliners. Around the Virgin Islands, the bull shark is feared, not so much by swimmers and beach goers but by anglers working the drop-offs for tuna and marlin. At certain times of the year, a bull shark will ruin a hooked billfish so quickly it is hard to believe. There are all sorts of horror stories about large yellowfin tuna being reduced to a head in seconds. Not exactly encouragement for catch and release fishing or for commercial tuna fishing .

During the summer, when Bermuda fits the broad description of the idyllic tropical location, very few sharks are seen from shore; only a few are seen by scuba divers and on the offshore it is into the heat of August when the tigers on the Banks turn aggressive and feed on the tuna and just about anything else.

Despite their regular occurrence there isn't much in the way of shark fishing in Bermuda. Sharks are shunned by sports fishermen and commercial operators prefer to go after wahoo, tuna and other marketable species. Sharks can wind up as fillet or the occasional "puppy" for hashing, but by and large, they are not much sought after.

What then are the sharks that attack victims of shipwrecks or, worse yet, airplane ditching? Blue sharks do inhabit the open sea and wander through a large proportion of the world's oceans. They are certainly a candidate for the moniker "man-eater", but it seems to many who study such things that the real culprit is the oceanic white-tipped shark. This is not a species that is seen by casual anglers and even many commercial men have not come across this species. But they are out there. Just dumping the trash off a stationary boat some 20 miles south of the Island brought a white tip from seemingly nowhere up to inspect.

A cursory internet search or more scholarly research will turn up numerous incidences when white-tips were linked with feeding frenzies and wholesale attacks on men who have found themselves in the open sea as a result of a maritime disaster. Anyone wishing to know more about such things can well be directed to the case of the USS Indianapolis which was sunk in the Pacific during World War Two. Be warned, the accounts are not for the squeamish.

The oceanic white-tipped shark is aptly named. It roams pretty much most of the world's oceans with the exception of the really cold water in the polar regions. They tend to stay in the open sea, so they are probably way more common around Bermuda than any sightings would suggest.

Happily, there aren't too many occasions where we might find ourselves out in the middle of nowhere where such creatures apparently dominate the scene. To quote the poet Kipling, with any luck, maybe "never the twain shall meet".

Looking ahead, this was the weekend that should have had Bermudians at the Miami Boat Show but, thanks to the mid-week weather both here and on the east coast; the flight schedules are so disrupted that it will take some time to return to anything resembling normalcy. No doubt some people had their plans changed for them by circumstances beyond anyone's control.

On a more positive note, perhaps the worst of the winter weather is behind us now and, with the day's lengthening, the sea should start to warm up and the fish will fall back into their seasonal patterns. As that happens, anglers will start to prepare for a season that may really only be a little more than a month away. Tight lines!!!