Hi there, my name is Omari The Oceanic White Tip. I am an Oceanic White Tip Shark. I shall be your Aquatots pal for your level 25 Aquatots Course. Us White Tip Sharks can swim 10 times faster than a human can, we are super fast. How fast can you swim?
Let me tell you a little bit more …
We will be continuing all the aspects of stroke work that you have been introduced to with a few new additions. We will be slowing down our front crawl and back crawl arm technique with something called ‘Catch Up’ which is a drill used to help your child think about their arms more clearly. Breast Stroke weeks will see some exciting additions including how to turn and swim back away from the wall using ‘one arm sweep under, 2nd arm sweep over’ turn technique and adding a ‘tumble turn with a Breast Stroke pull out ‘. As always, you can except 2 weeks of front crawl, 2 weeks of Breast Stroke, 2 weeks of snorkelling, distance day, rescue day and back crawl.
We are found throughout the world’s oceans, mostly in cool waters close to the coast. We are large carnivores which means we eat other animals. We can grow as big as 4.6 metre to 6 meters long. That is half the length of a bus! Not only are we big but we have huge mouths with approximately 300 sharp, triangular teeth arranged in up to seven rows. Yikes! We lose out teeth all the time but they always grow back.
Great white sharks are at the top of the food chain and aren’t likely to be killed by other sea creatures. Sadly, however, we are under serious threat by human activity. Illegal hunting of these beautiful beasts, and overfishing, have meant that today great white sharks are a vulnerable species.
Great white sharks have such a strong sense of smell that they can detect a colony of seals two miles away. And check this out – if there was only one drop of blood in 100 litres of water, a great white would smell it!
Our swimming technique uses our powerful tails that propel us through the water moving from side to side. It is a really efficient way for us to swim with our body shape.
Really cool Fact!!
The great white shark is thought to have a top swimming speed of 25 mph (40 kph), perhaps with short bursts of 35 mph (56 kph). Their swimming speed is 10 times faster than the typical human swimmer! Wow.
Next term, you will be meeting Tina The Tiger Shark