The day after a mass bull shark appearance down the
road, Steve "Longtom" Shearer comes face to face with a Great White
at Lennox Head…
Odd to see the joint I chose to live at transformed into
one of the shark attack capitals of the World.
I say attack but behind every attack are untold
encounters/circlings/bumpings/drive bys blah blah blah.
I never pretend to be a local here. I’m a blow-in, a Bribie
redneck through and through. No amount of Dostoevsky, no Borsalino
flat cap will ever change that dog.
When we was little scumbags running riot on Bribie our mentor
and God Peter B told us about this place. Epic pointbreak, rocks
that would shred you, locals who got punchy at the drop of a hat.
First look at the place and I knew it was for me.
Peter smoked too much weed, started hearing voices and ended up
swinging from the end of a rope. He was only 16. None of us ever
recovered from that, not really, but when I got a chance I moved
down.
Now we got Whites, we’ve got Bulls. Mostly polite compared to
the Reunion ones. They get nasty in the dirty water
when the mullet are running but in clear water? That’s surf on and keep
your eyes open.
Big tigers, too. Twelve-footer caught on the South Ballina drum
line today, a red buoy just out the back at South Wall. Again,
compared to the Hawaiian tiger ours seem strangely relaxed.
Majestically indifferent.
We get days, like today, of such vibrancy, such purity that you
get a go out regardless. Hypeless swells swinging under the surf
forecast radar, no one around.
Well one guy. On a mat. I won’t say his name. Before the courts
and all that.
We go back in time a long way. Just me and him sharing perfect
rock runners. Warm water clear and as full of life as an aquarium,
set waves standing up turquoise on the bank before spiralling down
the rocks. A sub-tropical dream without a soccer Mum in sight.
My compadre is pissed, as the American saying goes. Spitting
chips in the Australian vernacular.
Things ain’t so black and white as the media have made out and
the day in court, when it comes, might surprise people. Let’s just
say, after seeing and hearing all the evidence I am not totally
unsympathetic to his position. We trade waves.
There’s shit to be done. I start thinking I should get home.
It’s hard not to play one more wave. Just one more. It’s so pretty
in the mid-morning sunlight. Sparkling like diamonds. Fairy wrens
still in their summer plumage twittering in the coastal rosemary.
Companion rides the first wave of a beautiful set and I bomb the
second wave. Just a lazy cutback into the white water and the back
foot slipped off. He’s way down the line.
Some little imperceptible rapid movement in my peripheral vision
sparks an unconscious reaction. I turn quickly to the movement. It
takes a micro-second to see clearly what it is. A White shark.
Coming in very hot straight at me. I don’t feel a thing even
remotely allied with fear. It’s a “whoa!” I face it. It turns
quickly and comes almost to a dead stop.
I paddle back out for one more. Definitely taking the next one
in now.
I only got used to surfing solo again this year. Mostly at this
spot. Close to the rocks, an easy escape route. But I’m not
thinking that, now. I’m wracking my brain trying to think if I’ve
written things about my surf buddy, things that might come back and
bite me on the arse.
Flick. Some little imperceptible rapid movement in my peripheral
vision sparks an unconscious reaction. I turn quickly to the
movement. It takes a micro-second to see clearly what it is. A
White shark. Coming in very hot straight at me. I don’t feel a
thing even remotely allied with fear. It’s a “whoa!” I face it.
It turns quickly and comes almost to a dead stop. I can feel the
pressure wave on my legs. White shark does a slow circle around me.
I can see it the whole time in the crystal clear water. Comes in
nice and slow right underneath me and rolls over. The big pectoral
fins look like a plane, the white belly almost gleams in the sun
against the dark rocks. We eyeball each other.
There is no fear, no frozen feelings, no panic. Just a profound
moment of inter-species communication across the gulf of millions
of years of evolution. In that black eye I can already see it has
decided I am not prey.
It turns quickly and comes almost to a dead stop. I can feel the
pressure wave on my legs. White shark does a slow circle around me.
I can see it the whole time in the crystal clear water. Comes in
nice and slow right underneath me and rolls over. The big pectoral
fins look like a plane, the white belly almost gleams in the sun
against the dark rocks.
It rolls under me, rights itself and continues on down the line.
I paddle in to the rocks, stop about a metre out and begin hooting
to old mate. The White shark is heading straight towards him now.
Making the sign of the fin is clearly understood around here.
Seconds later we are both on the rocks.
“Get a good look at it?” he said.
“Yeah, really good. Juvie White, seven-or-eight-foot long,
frisky.”
“Oh well, it’s probably gone now, surf still looks really
good.”
“All yours, I’m out for the day.”
It never came to me in my dreams which makes me think I ain’t
bullshitting myself when I said there was no fear.
You never know how you’re going to react.
Ain’t it the queerest thing?
