The Misery Machine - Maine's First Shark Related Death

Episode Date: August 3, 2020

This week, Yergy and Drewby report on Maine's first shark related death that took place on July 27th in the town of Harpswell, on the quaint Bailey Island - a place Yergy and Drewby both grew up visiting. 63-year-old Julie Dimperio Holowach, a New York native who, while staying at her summer home in Harpswell, was tragically killed by a great white shark while she was swimming in the ocean. We cover the facts of the case as made public by the media, and give our own tips as locals on how to stay safe in the ocean this summer.    This week's episode is sponsored by Podcorn: https://podcorn.com/ Join Our Facebook Group to Request a Topic: https://t.co/DeSZIIMgXs?amp=1 Support Our Patreon For More Unreleased Content: https://www.patreon.com/themiserymachine PayPal: https://www.paypal.me/themiserymachine Instagram: miserymachinepodcast Twitter: misery_podcast Discord: https://discord.gg/kCCzjZM #podcast #documentary #truecrime

I'm Yergy. And I'm Drewby. And we are at Mackle Cove on Bailey Island, Maine. And right behind us, right here is where Maine's first shark-related death took place. This was a very recent event, so we don't have all the facts, but we're going to cover what we know. If you're listening on YouTube, please hit like and subscribe. We're almost at 650 subscribers. Yeah, thank you everyone for the support. We're happy to be able to do on location stuff like this. Not a whole lot happens in Maine, so it's good to cover something in Maine again. So anything else in Maine that we do, we'll be there. And hitting like and subscribe makes us able to do that a lot easier.

So thank you for that. Without further ado. Without further ado, Maine's very first shark-related death. For those that are unfamiliar, this is our only shark-related death in the state and the second shark attack. There was a shark attack in the... It was an Eastport where a... smaller shark attacked a diver didn't really cause any harm, just attacked its camera.

Sharks in Maine aren't a rarity. It's just the fact that they don't really make themselves known other than if you're, say, at Bar Harbor, they see them there a lot because they eat seals. We have quite a bit of seals in Maine. It's only growing. The shark population is growing. The seal population is growing. And so to hear of a shark attack like this, while rare, don't get me wrong, unsurprising. So this New York resident, her name is Julie D'Imperio Hollowock. She was up here on Bailey Island, Maine, which you'll probably hear us say Bailey's Island or Bayleys because that's what... Locals call that. Yeah, a lot of locals will call it Bailey's Island or Bayleys. She was swimming in a black wetsuit, 60 feet offshore. I've also heard reports 100 feet offshore, but at least 60 feet and was

attacked by a shark and had her stomach ripped open. She was swimming with her daughter. Her daughter made it back unharmed. She, however, was dead on the scene. Basically instantly, some reports see her being bitten, being raised out of the water from a foot to 18 inches, and then nothing. Yeah, some say she was pulled under as well. There's conflicting reports on what happened exactly, but there was, I don't know, was he an Australian tourist? He sounded a bit Australian, the gentleman that in his kayak pulled her to shore. Yeah, he heard her screaming and he jumped in a kayak paddled out there and pulled her body back to shore. There's no sign of the shark, which was confirmed as a great white, as there was a

tooth fragment in the body that they sent to be tested. They did confirm it's a great white. And great whites are not a rare thing here. They really aren't, honestly. And I don't even know. I think you're going about to get to this, but I don't know how it didn't happen in that area before, but continue. Yeah, I really don't know how it didn't happen either.

because these are areas with a lot of seals. I didn't know this until I was a bit older, but I remember I went to Popham Beach in the morning, very early morning with a friend a very long time ago, and I just saw all these seal heads just floating in the water. Oh, yeah. And I was like, there's seals in Maine. I thought seals were in Canada.

I did not think that they were here. And people think that sharks shouldn't be here and that they're coming up here because the water's getting warmer. There's nothing to do with it. They've always been here. Based on people who study, sharks. I don't know what the technical name for it is. I'm just saying an oceanographer. An oceanographer. Okay. So we read some things. Marine biologists. We've read some accounts and watched some videos from

them and they say that the temperature difference does not move sharks that much, especially the temperature change being so slight. They just naturally will swim up to the northeast and to Canada this time of year. They have sharks tracked all the way up to Nova Scotia. So this just isn't an uncommon thing. They've been tracking sharks for a very long time. So for people to say, oh, there shouldn't be sharks here. What's going on? This is global warming. It's not. No. It's not a cause of this. We believe

in global warming, but this is not a cause of global warming. So if you think about it, where they have quite a geographical footprint, you see them everywhere. You have them in Australia. You have the very famous great whites in South Africa that jump out of the water in bite seals. Yeah.

You have them down in Florida. New Smyr in a Beach is shark bite capital. You have them in Hawaii off of, I think it's Oahu. There is a very large, possibly 50-year-old shark named Deep Blue that's there. 50 years old? 50-50. Yeah, they're everywhere. They had reports of one up in Quebec recently.

Yeah, I heard about that. In the bay. I mean, they had a whale, too. Yeah, well, the whale, it made it clearly way out of whack. It was in Montreal. Yeah, that whale shouldn't have been there. and unfortunately it died likely because of that reason, though, they're still looking into that. That was also a recent. I believe they said it got hit by a boat propeller.

Oh, really? Yes. That's really sad. It's really sad. Probably someone tried to get too close. I mean, but I can get into a little unexperience I had with that, too. Kind of that ties into this a little bit. Mainz had a lot of weird sea life situations.

It's not just seals. We have a lot of seals. Popham, Fort Popham specifically, which is further down the road, has a lot of sails. there is a small rock islands, I'd say maybe 100, 200 feet from where the fort is that's covered in seals. Growing up, we had a boat. It wasn't a huge one. It's just like a family-sized boat. And we would go down the Kennebec River and we would go to Popham and my dad and my uncles would fish for striped bass.

And you'd see so many seals there. Well, on one occasion, I talked to my mom a little bit about this because I was so young at the time. But we have our own kind of really weird whale story. So in 1990, I would have been seven years old at the time. There was a humpback whale that decided to just come hang out in Orr's Island. So Oras Island is the island before you get to Bailey Islands in what they call Harpswell. So Harpswell is just a small chain of islands. That's really all it is.

And they considered a town. It's off of the coast of Brunswick. So this whale, they were really worried it was going to beach itself. But what had happened is we had an. influx of pogey fish. Do you know what that is, Drewie? I don't know what a pokey is. So they're these kind of bait fish that they tend to come in schools and there's mass amounts of them. And what ends up happening? Usually fishermen will will fish for them. They use them for bait. They use them for fertilizer. But they're kind of gross because there's so many. They'll get themselves close to

shore. They'll use up all the oxygen and just die. So the summer of 1990, all along the coast of Maine, there were hundreds of thousands of dead pogies all over the beaches. And dead pogey smell disgusting. What do they smell like? Like completely rotten trash and like it's so putrid. Okay. It's the worst thing ever. And the beaches were covered in these dead pogeys.

So basically what happened with the whale is there was a fishing net trying to trap the pogeys in the bay there so that the fisherman could kind of catch them easier. Well, the whale figured out how to get in. He could go up and over and he wouldn't leave. And everyone was worried he was going to get beached. But really he was sitting and basically. like a bowl of food. I can stay here forever.

Yeah, he just basically hung out there, like the entire summer. Single-handily destroyed the pogee influx. It was ridiculous, but it was a juvenile whale. It was really cute. We actually went in our boat to go see it. You know, we didn't have the propeller on or anything we just float in. It would come near the boat. And I remember my mom took her camera and pointed it at the water.

And we had had a picture at one point. I don't know where these pictures are. Probably at our house. But the water was just fish. Wow. That's all you could see in the water was just, bunch of fish. Yeah, ask your mom to find that. Maybe we can put it up. Yeah, but another thing that was going on with that that kind of was pushing the fish kind of to shore. There was also this weird

Russian fishing vessel that was just like this huge ship. Like I'm talking like bigger than a cruise ship. Yeah, you told me this story. Didn't you say you traded a Soviet flag for something? Yeah, my mom traded her leather visor for the Soviet flag that was on their mast. But they were there. This was when the Soviet Union was still active? Somewhat. I mean, they had that flag the hammer and sickle on their boat it was just really strange because they were fishing for pogeys too which unfortunately would then drive them to shore and in recent years we have issues with this because fishermen will go and catch more than they can carry and then dump the dead ones which also then causes them to litter the beaches i didn't know that was illegal it's if you're in

open water it's fine but everything unfortunately will wash to shore but that also brings sharks in Seemed like I was going off in tangent, but it kind of brings it in. No, it does. Yeah, this also brings sharks in closer. Hey, guys, we're excited to say that this episode is sponsored by Podcorn. Yergy, what is podcorn? Podcorn is a marketplace connecting podcasters to amazing podcast sponsorship opportunities, such as host red ads, interview segments, topical discussions, and more.

Right, so if you're listening and you have a podcast like so many of our listeners do, this is a great place to get money for doing. a podcast and it's been great so far there's no middleman with this at all you go through all of the companies that are offering sponsorships and you set your own price you name what your price is and you submit a proposal to them and if they like you you you get the ad and i don't think there's anything better than that right and if you take a podcorn sponsorship you will still keep all your rights to all your podcast if you have a podcast what are you waiting for go check out Podcorn. Click the link in the description to try it right now.

There is a seal that washed up either just before or just after the attack and it had a giant bite mark in it. This was in Phippsburg, I believe. Yeah, so Phippsburg, which is kind of near the Popham Beach area, it washed ashore and it had a 19-inch bite mark going across it. And all things considered, that's not far from Bailey Island. No, when you really look at Casco Bay or the Gulf of Maine as a whole, we have more shoreline than anywhere. in the USA. Honestly, if you took all of our shoreline and then unwrapped it around all the little grooves, it goes on for thousands of miles. So all of this really, it's in little different nooks, but it's really not that far away. Yeah. All things are considered. Get there in a day.

Maine's not very big. Even if you're on a boat, you'd even get there even quicker. So the sharks getting around fast. And sharks are really fast. Yes, they are. So from what I understand, Popham Beach, which is one of the bigger state parks in our area, which is in Phippsburg, they ban swimmers from going any deeper than waist deep, and you weren't allowed to go to Fox Island. So what Fox Island is is a island that is accessible by land during low tide. Once the high tide comes in, it comes in very quick at Popham Beach, actually comes in sideways, and you can get trapped on Fox Island if you're unlucky to be out there when it does. So you couldn't go there at all.

But I don't know, there's like a lot of weird things going on, a lot of misinformation. I know people were stating that one of the problems, the victim had was that she was out in a wetsuit and seals look like people in wetsuits and that's the problem. I listened to an oceanographer talk about this, if that's the correct word. And sharks go after seals that are solitary that aren't with the rest of the seals. That's what they like to pick off. Julie D'Imperio Holooc in a black wetsuit is enough for a shark to confuse her potentially as a seal far away. and that's what most experts believe as the case for the attack.

Right. I mean, I have my own opinions on this. I definitely don't want to victim shame here. That's not what I'm trying to do. No, not at all. Or speak ill of someone that recently passed. You know, I'm not a marine biologist. I'm not an oceanographer.

But I've grown up in Maine all of my life. And there's just certain things that you do and you don't do when swimming in the ocean. So I know personally for me, if I were at the ocean or at a beach, you don't go in deeper than waste deeper. even chest deep. I'm a very short woman. I don't go higher than waist deep because any wave's going to knock me over. And even if you're a strong swimmer, we have undercurrent that has easily pulled people away, pulled people's dogs away. You have to be careful around the ocean. And I know within the past couple decades, especially beaches around here, people have been lax about that. People swim a little bit deeper. We don't have a lot of surfing or anything like that. But we haven't had any shark deaths up here because the shark population, has been low. The seal population has been low, so people don't really think of things like this. However, you look at Jaws. Jaws took place in New England, right? Or off the coast of New England?

Yeah, I don't know if it actually, I haven't watched Jaws in years, years, years, years, years, but I believe it's probably based in the Cape Cod area. Yeah, could be wrong. Could be wrong, but that's what it looks like to me, just off of my recollection from 20 years ago watching this. But I don't think the wetsuits really are a problem. It does get cold in Maine waters. Yeah, it's a big help. Just wear your wetsuit. But there's definitely things that you can do to kind of keep yourself a little more safe. Like Drew mentions, rip tides and undercurrents are a really big problem.

So you wouldn't want to go out that far anyway. You can actually see rip currents and stuff sometimes from the shore where it is. And if you're not familiar with what it is, it's where the current kind of goes. It pulls you back is what it's basically doing. And the only way to get out of it is to swim sideways. Yeah. And when people are panicking, they don't realize that. And they start trying to swim in.

And then they get pulled off and they drown. So that's like one big reason where. I personally, as a swimmer, wouldn't go out that far. Where she was in McRole Cove. So we're going to have some footage of this. We took some video footage. We took some pictures. I don't think I personally would have felt comfortable swimming around here.

And I don't know how a shark attack hasn't happened before. So McRole Cove, for those not local, is a little fishing cove on Bailey Island, Maine, which is in the town of Harpswell. So basically what you have there is you have a whole bunch of fishing boats that are kind of just moored out in the water. And it's where a lot of fishermen in the area come back to drop off some of their catches. When you come up to the beach portion of Mackle Cove to the right, there's a place where I believe they're processing fish because there's seagulls everywhere. During certain times of the year, you will see parts of lobster and parts of fish and fishing gear all washed up on the shore.

So where you have fish like that being processed, you have seals. Where you have seals, you have sharks. I don't know how this hasn't happened before or there hasn't been sightings or seals washed up on. the beach at mackerel cove it just seems kind of crazy to me that this hasn't happened before i also probably would have felt uncomfortable swimming in open water like that just because there is a possibility you could get hit by a fishing boat coming back in there's a lot there's a lot of them and they're just kind of they might not see you i mean again i'm not trying to like victim shame here someone getting bit but i'm just trying to throw at some ideas and tips just talk about safety about safety for anyone that still wants to do this going forward

Because I don't think that you shouldn't be swimming in the ocean. I love swimming in the ocean. It's one of my favorite summer things to do. But where this is the ocean, sharks aren't just going to not come to Maine. They don't know what boundaries are. They're going to go wherever they want to. This probably will happen again at one point. It's just kind of tips to kind of keep you a little bit safer.

And we get jellyfish and other things too. Oh, yeah. We do. We have like a large population of moon jellies and more and more lions head jellies have been washing up. And Yergy got pinched by a crab the short time we were at mackerel. cove. Yeah, we went in the water at Mackle Cove and took some pictures. It was really hot. I just wanted to cool my feet off anyway. But yeah, I got pinched by a crab in the ankle. The other thing we should mention about that cove is there was a sign there. And I don't remember exactly what it said, but it said that it's

constantly being monitored. And sometimes it's not safe to swim in based on the bacteria. The bacteria content in there. So that's another thing you should think about them. Assuming that bacteria content comes from the fact that there's so many fishing vessels going in and out. I assume it's either vessels, I would assume, you know, when you have red tide and things of that nature, it's not safe to swim. I would imagine because that's kind of a fishing area that could be why, but that signs new that what hadn't been there in recent years. And also, a lot of people don't swim at Mackle Cove. That's just like another thing, too. Yeah, we saw nobody there when we were there. And people were at Bailey Island. Don't get me wrong. Went to Lanz End and it was basically

mobbed, but nobody was down by the shore. And those that were just sitting or just walking, nobody was swimming and we were the only two people that dipped our feet in the water. It's interesting because when you think of Bailey's Islands or Bailey Island, I'm sorry, I'm speaking like a local here. The beaches there aren't really beaches that you would see tourists or people just traditionally swimming in. They're very rocky. It's very rocky. Like I said before, a lot of fishing debris, whether it is parts of fish or fishing gear washes up. I wouldn't say it's unclean, but it's not the type of Christine beach that tourists.

or people are looking for. For that, they'll go to Popham Beach or Old Orchard Beach. But normally when I see people swimming there, it's divers. I've seen people diving with scuba gear. Yeah, you see divers. You never see surfers. You don't see surfing much in Maine in general. We just don't have the types of waves, or at least so I'm told.

And I go to the beach a lot. I don't see, I haven't see anything really like that in my lifetime. So really, Yergy's tips for safety here. Don't go out pasture waste, more so for rip currents, rather than sharks. Don't be afraid to wear your wet suit. It's really not that big a deal. It does get cold in the water. I don't think so, but you'd probably think so. I think so. And just, you know, wear your sunscreen and also something to think about when I was in Florida, there was a bunch of people decently far out too. And I think the reason why they weren't scared, maybe one,

because of the culture, it's normal. But two, there's so many people. There's people driving by on jet skis. There's people doing parasailing and boats. And I think that type of activity might scare away certain marine life that doesn't want to come around. So because of that, you compare that to up here where we don't have those things in the water. I would assume that sea creatures would be more willing to come closer to shore. And I should note to Florida, the water there's a little bit different. You can, at least some pictures I've seen, I've never been to the ocean in Florida. You can kind of see through it. So I've taken a boat through it through canals and stuff that connect to the ocean. And I've seen dolphins swim right by.

Yes, you can see pretty well in Florida water. Main ocean water isn't like that. You can go up to your waist and you can't see the ground. We have really dark water. There's another reason as far as safety. So when I went parasailing in St. Petersburg, I could still see the practically the bottom of the ocean where I was parasailing. I was really high up in the air. The water was that clear that day.

I can't ever remember any time the ocean was that clear in Maine, even close to being that clear. It's not. It really isn't. Think about if you're coming up to Maine, if you're a tourist and you're coming up to Maine, think about what you're intending to do at the ocean. You come up here to whale watch. You know, you don't come up here to do the types of things they do in Florida. That's not what our ocean is about. I mean, I'm not trying to discourage proper usage of our waters.

Yeah, Maine is a beautiful state. The ocean's beautiful here. Do your kayaking. It's gorgeous. Go do whale watching. Swim responsibly. But don't think you're going to jump off your catamaran and swim in the water without something possibly happening.

Not saying shark attack, but just getting pulled under by currency. For sure. And know that there's not a whole lot of people around most of the time. So I think Old Orchard Beach is probably the one where it's most. Like you're going to see like the most amount of people there. Even still. And I'm glad. you brought up Old Orchard Beach, even though I had talked about it before something, you know, came to mind for me. Old Orchard Beach is by far the most touristy beach, aside from possibly Wells Beach and that type of area. But Old Orchard is still the most popular. They routinely, people fishing off the pier will catch large sharks. Yeah, that's true. Growing up, people would catch Mako sharks in excess of 15 feet long off the Old Orchard Beach pier. And if you've ever seen a Mako shark, they're pretty scary looking in the face. Yeah.

I mean, they're not totally known to catch people, but it's what's in our water. Yeah. I mean, the pier at Old Orchard's not very long. It's just like 100 feet long. And again, first shark-related death, second shark-related attack in Maine. I'm not saying that this is something that's possible. Do I think it's more likely now than it ever was with the increasing population? Yes, I do. I don't want you to be afraid.

Just take certain precautions because times are changing. All right. Well, if you're listening on YouTube, please, again, hit like and subscribe. We're almost at 650. Thank you so much for the support so far. Every little bit helps. And an extra special thank you to all of our patrons. Yes.

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We love you very much. Going that extra mile to support us, makes us able to do more things that we want to do with this podcast, like going on location, having video like we had earlier. This is new for us, so we're really trying here. That and I really just like having the community. Right now is a really, really, really hard time. It is.

It's very suffocating time. It's good to have that community, at least in Discord, to just chat about bullshit. Yeah, and if you want to join our community on Discord, it's in the show notes. It's in the description. Everyone's chill there. Everybody's super accepting. It has been a very good support system and just a way to just a way to just. just take a break from life in general.

I encourage you to join that. And if you want to support us on Patreon, patreon.com slash the misery machine. We're going to be sending out postcards soon. Don't you want a postcard? I bet you want a postcard from us. And you get to hear our weekly video check-ins. Yeah, I think I'm going to start actually doing the postcards this afternoon or tomorrow.

So if you would like one. Get on it. Get on it. And bonus episodes. We have so much and you get access to our Snapchat. There's so much we try to give you in order for support. reporting us on Patreon. And as things get further, we're hopefully going to be able to give you that much more. Remember, every dollar we get goes back into this podcast to try to make things better for you.

And if you don't like Patreon, PayPal.m.m.m.m. Message us will work something out. And we finally have stickers. Yes, we have stickers now. And they came out amazing. They're beautiful. I have the very first sticker on my car. Yes. So if you want a sticker, they're going for $1 each. So hit us up. If you want one, if you want to rep us. And patrons, you'll be getting your stickers this month. Yes. For supporting us for this long, there's no reason for you not to get a free sticker. Anything else, Drewie?

No, that's it. Okay, Will. We love you so much. We love you guys. Until next week. All right. Bye. Hi.

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