"My hands were on the tail of the board and I didn't have a leggie on so then I threw the board at it and then squirmed my way in as fast as I could."
Sydney surfer Sam Hall has described a pretty wild hit by a suspected Bronze Whaler shark last Wednesday at Manly on Sydney’s northside.
Sam, a twenty-nine-year-old who works in energy renewables and is pals with shredder/artist Billy Bain, was surfing a hundred or so yards offshore at a bank between Queenscliff and North Steyne.
Sunset.
Murky water.
Had the bank to himself; another two surfers batted away a little further north.
“Then it just emerged in front of me, one metre away. I didn’t even see a fin,” he says. “The mouth came up at me and I was lying on the board so I was able to push the nose of my board in front of me. It took a bite off the side. My hands were on the tail of the board and I didn’t have a leggie on so then I threw the board at it and then squirmed my way in as fast as I could. The tide was slow so I was trying to find where the sandbank was and stand up. Not knowing at the time if it might come back. It was a frantic moment.”
On the beach, another surfer said he saw the shark circling Sam.
“I was lucky that I was facing it,” says Sam. “It would’ve taken a good chunk out of me based on the depth of the teeth in my board. They’re not thick but they’re fucking sharp.”
Standing on the beach, shaken and very stirred, Sam describes the moment as “surreal… coming to the beach and trying to explain it and not having the validation from other people.”
Later, Sam called the government’s Fisheries department and spoke to a senior biologist who surmised that it was probably a Whaler shark and that it was a hit out of aggression not hunger.
How rattled was he?
Sam says he’s still processing the event, he got on the booze a couple of days later so “everything’s put on hold”, but says he was “frazzled” and that he’s having night thoughts of the “different scenarios of what could’ve gone down.”
Still, could’ve been worse.
“There’s been a big White cruising around (Fairy) Bower and Deadies (Deadman’s), heaps of activity in the water.”
Sam laughs.
“It’s all happening.”
(Check out this White at Manly, from last week.)
