And local shaper quits surfing after Great White feeding frenzy near famous pointbreak.
Yesterday, the little beach town of Angourie was blessed with the performance of two Great Whites and two Tiger sharks eating a dead Humpback whale near the world-famous point.
Read the initial report here .
“It would’ve been a disaster if it washed up on the rocks. There wouldn’t have been surfing for months,” says Laurie’s big bro, Hughie, who jumped in his own boat for a squiz at the action. “Laurie called me and said, ‘Fuck, drop your tools and get your boat in the water.”’
The big-wave surfer and apprentice tiler, Laurie Towner, who is thirty two, was first on the scene along with David “Baddy” Treloar whose section in Morning of the Earth inspired a generation to shuck work and disappear north. The pair saw that a dead Humpback whale, fifty feet long or so, was threatening to drift right onto the rocks at Angourie Point and used Baddy’s boat to tow the giant mammal a mile offshore.
“It would’ve been a disaster if it washed up on the rocks. There wouldn’t have been surfing for months,” says Laurie’s big bro, Hughie, who jumped in his own boat for a squiz at the action. “Laurie called me and said, ‘Fuck, drop your tools and get your boat in the water.”’
Hughie, who is thirty five and runs a carpentry biz out of nearby Yamba, said that as soon as he got to the whale, one of the Great Whites came to check him out.
“Next minute, two Tigers turned up,” he says. “They were real curious. One came so close I gave him a little pat on his dorsal fin. They’d go in for a feed, come over and cruise around the boat, head back for another feed then come back.”
Hughie says the biggest of the two Whites was around ten feet, although one Tiger was slightly larger. Keen to share the “incredible” experience Hughie went in and grabbed two pals including Will Webber, a noted shaper and brother to the well-known Greg Webber.
“Oh my fuck, oh my fucking god,” Will said when he arrived at the scene.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BlRrw87nLVm/?taken-by=will.webber.surfboards
“Will said he’s having a big board sale this weekend,” says Hughie. “He gave up surfing after seeing that.”
Meanwhile, as far as Hughie knows, the whale is drifting south towards Brooms Head.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BlSP4a_neWI/?hl=en&taken-by=calebgrahamfilms
