Pippa Mozambique: Day 46. Tiger Shark on Paindane

Chess and I had a quiet start to our day on Paindane with only one small goat fish being brought up on a kayak. We got a phone call that morning saying that a local dive boat had spotted sharks being brought up on a longline just off Paindane so we stayed and waited for a few hours.
At 12:05 we saw the boat coming in. There was something massive being towed by it. All I could see was a large grey fin cutting through the breakers. It was a Tiger Shark, it was huge (nearly 3.5m long) and it was still very much alive. As the breakers crashed onto the beach the men who had untied the massive creature from the boat dodged the jaws. More sharks were onboard. Altogether there was a Tiger Shark, a Hammerhead, a Guitar Fish and a large reef shark.
All four were again dragged through the swallows to the dunes where the dissecting had taken place only a few days before. The Tiger Shark was too heavy to be pulled up the beach by 10 men and finally its tow rope snapped. It was still alive as the fishermen started to cut it's underside open. It's huge liver spilled out onto the sand. The liver was about 2m long. Sharks use their oil filled liver for buoyancy, unlike fish, who have gas filled bladders. In some sharks the liver can account for 25% of its body weight. With the liver removed and taken away for consumption the shark was light enough to be dragged up the sand dune to the valley. It's huge body still moved and the shark trashed for about 20 minutes even as it was being cut up. Narrowly missing a fishermen's leg the creatures huge jaws open and snapped closed. Finally, a machete was driven through its spinal cord and the movement stopped.