I love love love the way New Zealanders are masters of understatement ....and kind of cute too

You can read the story in full here in the New Zealand Herald but the section that had me smiling had to posted here.

... Marty Hoffart rowed his small boat out to the net he'd set off Papamoa Beach.

Instead of finding fish for dinner, he got a little more than he bargained for when he came face to face with one of the ocean's most capable predators.

He suspected something was wrong when he tried to drag the net in.

It was little more difficult than usual and it was a long time before the white belly of a 2.5m bronze whaler became visible above the water.

"Occasionally we get sand sharks but nothing this size. Two and a half metres is pretty huge when you're in a 2.5m row boat," he said. "Once I saw the huge white belly I had to stop and have a think. There was no way it was coming into the boat."

A neighbour, Ryan Orchard, paddled out in his kayak to give Mr Hoffart a hand. They decided to tow the shark to shore where a gathering crowd waited to get a look at the beast.

When they got to shore, they buried the shark, which was estimated to weigh about 200kg.

"I think a lot of the locals were happier to see it out of the water than in the water," said Mr Hoffart.

I love that that he was in a rowboat the same size as the shark but then reading that his friend rowed out in a kayak to help him was simply delicious.

Vive Kiwis!!