A BRITISH tourist stared death in the face when he was attacked by a 20ft great white shark that had chewed through the seemingly secure metal bars of his viewing cage.

Mark Currie, 32, had lowered himself into the cage off the coast of South Africa to get a closer look at the shark but soon found himself fighting for his life as the cage began to sink after the fish struck.

The whole episode was captured on Mr Currie’s video recorder that he had given to another holidaymaker on the boat.

The terrifying incident began when two women in the cage spotted the shark and clambered back into the safety of the boat.

But Mr Currie, from Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, decided that as he had paid his money he would have a go, believing the cage, kept afloat by four buoys off the coast at Hermanus, must be safe. The shark began to circle before heading straight for him. Mr Currie, a salesman, thought this was normal until the fish rammed the cage and bit through the metal bars.

Desperately trying to hang on as he was shaken like “an ant in a jar” Mr Currie grabbed one of the bars, putting his arm within inches of the shark’s teeth. When one of the buoys burst the cage began to sink at an angle and the shark tried to get into the 3ft cage from above. In a desperate attempt to save his life Mr Currie, a father of one, was forced to surface for air, risking being caught by the shark, before swimming to the bottom of the cage and safety.

All the while the shark was biting through the metal and getting closer.

Mr Currie said that he thought he was either going to drown or be eaten. Realising he had to escape he climbed on the top of the cage and, as the shark started what would have been his final, fatal attack, the captain hauled him into the boat while hitting the shark over the head with a metal bar.

Mr Currie, describing the experience, said yesterday: “When it started attacking the cage I thought I would be safe as long as I stayed inside — until it started breaking through the metal.

“I just went into survival mode. When the cage started sinking the shark was on top trying to get at me so I had to swim to the bottom to get away from it, going up just to get some air. I thought I was either going to drown or get eaten. I didn’t have any breathing apparatus, just a mask.

“I was shaken around like an ant in a jar. I had no control at all. I was holding on to the cage trying to survive and it nearly bit my arm off.

“In the end I realised I had to get out and jumped on to the cage with my foot right by its head before the captain pulled me out. It was lucky I didn’t slip.”

He said the captain told him that sharks in the area usually measured between 8ft and 12ft long and it was the biggest one he had seen in the five years of running the trip.

“Before I was there a woman was eaten whole by a great white in the same area. They never found her body, so the shark must have got a taste for human blood and wanted me to be the next meal.

“It was so weird. I think the captain was rather angry because he had to buy a new cage for the boat trips because his had sunk to the bottom of the sea.”

Thousands of tourists visit the waters off the southernmost tip of Africa each year, where a narrow channel runs between two offshore islands creating one of the most likely places to spot a great white shark in the world.

The body of the 77-year-old woman swimming off the Southern Cape was never found after she was attacked just a few weeks before Mr Currie. Only her red bathing cap was recovered.

Local people said that the increase in shark attacks was because of the bait of fish and blood that was used to attract the animals for the tourists to view. Mr Currie added: “It was a real thrill,” he said. “Scary, but it hasn’t put me off swimming in the sea. It’s given me some scary bedtime stories to tell my nine-year-old though.”

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