"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.)
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i got a photo of this shark at manly on the same morning, https://uploads.disquscdn.c… it’s a grey nurse but was acting a little skittish. Could be the culprit.
All is well .
A couple fun barrels. Should be good manana too
Killer last couple days, did you get in the water?
How goes life LGR ?
That attack yesterday in Oz was what I think they categorize as a “provoked” attack, I guess because if you are spearfishing, the blood is an attractor. Fair enough, but could surfers attacked be considered provokers too if the area is already well-known for shark attacks?
The distinction is hardly arguable but it really doesn’t matter. It does point though to a general ignorance of good water safety practices by humans. To wit: divers who dive alone and/or don’t immediately stash their catch out of water. Tigers in Hawaii are so common and aggressive now that every time we dive it’s always 2 people in the water. One to spot and the other pokes fish.The spotter carries a spiked telescoping aluminum rod and watches for attacking mano. Blacktip, grays and reef whitetips are usually small, just curious and stay away but they always seem to appear just as you’re about to surface with your catch.
Tigers always seem to appear out of nowhere and are usually lurking just out of sight. Highly evolved to know when a potential lonely prey is vulnerable or not, they seem to mostly stay away if there are 2 divers in close proximity to each other. Like some dogs, tigers will chase you if you’re fleeing but holding your ground and starting towards them is farken hairball ballsy but it’s an effective and hopeful deterrent.
Surfers are at the greatest disadvantage of all since you’re holding a steady position waiting in the lineup with legs dangling like tempting and delicious ono shark pupu. You can bet tigers have already got you well sussed by the time they attack. I feel way safer diving than surfing. The other idiots who like to swim on the ocean surface with a steady stroke might as well just be ringing the dinner bell.
go Dodger blue …
Lots of people swim laps of the beaches round here early morning.
They always come back.
Do they all wear tight pink speedos and those funny goggles?
Most of em.
Is it still topless optional or is that all in the past?
From what I have seen , on returns to Sydney , the topless Revolution of the late 70s and 80s disappeared but now all woman are wearing g bangers and a top .
Shame. I use to see my upstairs neighbor chatting away with a group of guys surrounding her all the time.
Was a turn on I have to admit.
Mate I had a girl in the 80s , drop dead gorgeous , who caused me nothing but trouble , but god , did she look great running around the beach wearing a string and nothing else ! Man does not merely surf for the surf alone ? Especially in warmer climes ….. Heard they set you somewhat , free in Melbourne ….. get out there Rob and breathe mate , you’ve earned it !
Yeah,will another week or so until the I can travel to the beach which is outside my 25Ks.
I can’t tell you how many room to let ads I answered from the Manly Daily.
But I can tell you that 95% of the guys that opened the door when I showed up had a pair.
Budgie Smugglers ……
I use to swim it 2 laps back and forth.
Completely ignorant. Probably wouldn’t now, too soft.
Just sent that video to my neighbor I surfed with. We lived top of the stairs above the surf club.
Big new swell and we were going to do a commando before work at the Bower.
Paddled out in the dark from the pool and I saw what I thought was a body floating on top of the water.Thought aww fuck..this is going to suck if I have to go in and tell somebody.
Was a cuttle fish with a head the size of a basketball thank fuck.
Good spot!!
They are real manly ( and wo manly ) swimmers !
captured this on the same day as the attack while the bold and beautiful were out and about https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
I remember seeing a member of the same family , held in captivity, at the old Manly Aquarium just down the Corso , not far from the Ferry Wharves in the early 70s on our regular Easter visit with my Nan .
I suppose in some respects they may have pulled down an aquarium and put up a Paradise but only if one is a seeing from the point of view of a Shark ?
Could be Heaven , could be Hell ?
Do you know if it’s still there? Never actually been in there it was pretty pricey.
Sorry Big D , I have no idea ….. the last time I went was in 75 .
That’s what they used to say about Byron, until one guy didn’t.
Use to see a tiger pop up at Hunakai’s now and then
Sitting out one day by myself I got hit pretty hard in my chest by a flying fish. Scared the shit out of me.
Do you happen to remember an indecent on Maui back around 89-91 when a tourist was swimming and got hit by a tiger? Canadian guy swam out to save the woman(i think it was a woman) as he thought she was drowning, saw it was a shark and swam in?
They got a guy who was on the news telling us how he going out to get it.
He came in and was surrounded by quite a few large men that told him he wasn’t going back out.
He was on the news that night telling us the island was too small,he wasn’t going back out.
300th day for ya ‘Down Under’ this year, right boyz?
You got ya a shark bite problem? Weird how only 21 pepz were bitten down in your neck of thee woods,
+ 7 died, yet sooo many, many hours were spent surfin’, swimmin’, divin’, spearfishin’, what are ya averaging, 1 bite a week in your whole, ‘surrounded by water’ Country?? No? Hmmmm…
opps, upside me head:
https://www.youtube.com/wat…
it seemz like i wrote a lil’ post, up above, toooo soon,
for i just done read, online, that another ‘spearo’ in Australia got his~self bitten ‘Down Under’, right?!?
dang sharkz just won’t leave pepz alone…
i quote:
A 59-year-old man spearfishing near the Great Barrier Reef in Australia suffered “catastrophic” injuries Sunday in a shark attack, officials say.
Paramedics airlifted the man from Britomart Reef to a Townsville hospital, where he’s listed in critical condition, after the 12:30 p.m. attack, The Guardian reported. ~snip~
link: https://www.yahoo.com/news/…
man,
it’s gotta suck livin’ in Australia, what with real live animals swimmin’ underwater!
here’s vid from a few dayz ago, @ Bondi Beach ~ i hear it is called,
just some people out for a lil’ swim, + those damn f**kin’ sharks!
https://www.youtube.com/wat…
link too: https://www.dailymail.co.uk…
Biologists: don’t anthropomorphize wild animals.
Also biologists: the shark bit out of aggression, not feeding and possibly confusion.
Bystander: But it continued to circle him
Biologist: Don’t believe your lying eyes. That doesn’t fit my narrative.
For fucks sake .
Who cares why they bite? Why are they always made out to be some Misunderstood 15 year old goth?
Can you relate?
well I am a big Cure fan.
Me too, minus the back combing and hairspray
Northern hemi riddled with the wheeze for winter, our summer is gonna be riddled with noah’s.
Fuck it, I think I’m team team cull now, the fuckers are an existential threat to my enjoyment.
BG is the fox news of Sharks and I’ve taken my daily dose and I’m now red pilled on sharks. Like totally.
https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
i think people are just making stuff up now.
By Christmas every Aussie will have a BS I fought a shark story too tell
No story would be better than this but I suppose you feel obliged to publish something daily?
Royal Life Saving Society Australia and Surf Life Saving Australia have today released the annual National Drowning Report showing that 276 people lost their life to drowning in Australia from July 2018 to June 2019.
Maybe it would just be better if Australians avoided the water altogether? You don’t have a shark problem you have a drowning problem at rate 40x+ shark deaths and each drowning equally tragic for the victim and family.
They’re mainly tourists
Wont be many drowning this year
Actually they are not.
An Australian study found accidental drowning to be the cause of approximately 5% of all deaths in the 1068 visitor deaths reviewed. Other figures place the number higher up to 27%.
Tourists, as in not locals
That is more possible yes.
Aus doesn’t have a shark problem because people drown there?
More people die in cars, so Aus doesn’t have a drowning problem it has a car problem?
Logic optional?
Accidental mortality is a problem no? I would assume you confront the bigger problems first.
Multitask?
They are no?
Using that logic we need to first confront stroke and heart disease before dealing with any other causes of death.
And I assume spending by the Australian government to confront cardiac disease, cancer and other leading causes of death dwarfs spending on drowning, bee stings, and shark related mortality.
Yes, probably not enough. My point being, you clearly stated that Aus does not have a shark problem. I’m saying it does
Australia has more of a shark.problem than coastal France where I live. It is a statistically insignificant problem in overall mortality. Any accidental death is a tragedy.
Overall mortality? Of what? The world?
I’d argue it’s statistically significant to coastal activities communities in Aus, Reunion etc
You could argue that but you would be incorrect.
In your opinion.
Watch the latest Red Bull edit on South Straddie. 10% about how good the spot is, 90% about how shark shocked everyone is. The attack statistics have had a significant effect on the culture and community.
Now you are changing the argument, is the argument now the psychological and psychiatric fears of Australian ocean users? The perceived but unquantified fears expressed in a Red Bull video are not statistically significant.
I guess we’re debating the meaning of significant. If you were a surfer living in Reunion, the Gold Coast or Esperance you would likely judge the statistics regarding shark attacks to be significant.
As a global cause of death, sharks are insignificant. Using that data is a false equivalence. This is BG, not the World Health Journal.
Any accidental death is significant to family and friends. As a cause of mortality in Australia shark deaths are insignificant. There were 170,000 registered deaths in Australia in 2019, do the math.
I think you’re missing the bigger picture of the shark attack debate.
As you state, each death is tragic for the family. But also for entire coastal communities. After the first stretch of shark attacks occurred in Ballina around 07-08, tourism was down by 70% over summer. The town was financially devastated and It had barely recovered by the time the 2nd series of attacks occurred around 2014. Every second shop closed down on the main street. You can bet that there’s plenty of families who suffered even though they never knew any of the victims.
What if that happens to a couple of dozen towns along the coast? What happens when the problem becomes so bad that international tourism dries up too? What is the cost then?
At what point should action be taken? Because by your line of reasoning, claiming that the number of deaths are insignificant, you could choose to do nothing if there are 30 deaths annually. Or 50. Maybe even 100. Or maybe it’s fine until it reaches the same level as the annual road toll? But by that point nobody would ever want to visit out beaches again.
Comparing avoidable deaths caused by shark attack to those caused by heart disease or even drowning is stupid because tourism, migration and population distribution will ever change as a result of one heart attack. Shark attacks, on the other hard, have the ability to effect all of those things.
It wouldn’t cost a penny to set a quota. Capitalism would fund it.
No, if capitalism the funding as the market requires would be there.
It is there. It’s illegal to fish them. Set a quota and fishermen will fish.
That isn’t capitalism, but rather an Australian government regulation that regulates fishing. As you believe this is a national crisis I am sure enough Australians have contacted their MP to force a legislative change and the problem will be resolved quickly.
I never said it was a national crisis. I said it was a surf community crisis. That’s the problem. Two wolves and a sheep arguing over what’s for dinner. Non stakeholders telling the minority what’s best for them.
“The risk of a fatality from shark attack in Australia remains low, with an average of 1.1 fatalities year– over the past 20 years. The increase in shark attacks over the past two decades is consistent with international statistics of shark attacks increasing annually because of the greater numbers of people in the water.”
Your governments view, bonne chance!
Not my government.
How many this year?
Things change.
This is a surf adjacent rag covering surf adjacent topics, not national death rates, hence shark articles.
7 in 2020, 0 in 2019. Trend or outlier?
Don’t know. While 7 may not be statistically significant it’s of huge significance to the Aus surf community. Hence shark articles.
Well if the surf community in Australia is pinning their hopes on BG shark articles I wish them good luck.
And youth suicide ?
Don’t concern yourself mate, you’ll be perfectly safe behind your keyboard with your stats.
I happen to personally know this guy, he is one of the best humans you could ever hope to meet, the world would be a shittier place without him.
You on the the other hand… I can’t be so sure.
I am pleased he was not injured or worse. I surfed for years in Reunion, now I would not due to sharks. Culls, netting and drum lines have not abated the issue yet many still surf as they can tolerate the risk, I cannot.
What do those statistics cover? Backyard drownings? Boating accidents? Heart attacks/strokes who happened to be in a body of water at the time? Or only people drowning specifically ocean with no other contributing factors? You talk of statistical relevance, but you can’t do an apples-apples comparison unless you narrow it down. So with regards to the surf community, how many of those drownings were fit, healthy people who were confident in the ocean and enter it daily? Probably not many, possibly less than the shark attack figures.
Now, I’m not advocating for action in either direction, I’m just saying you’re using non-sensical statistics to warp the discussion.
Tell us more about the nights out on the piss afterwards, cunt. Bitten by a bronzie and then sucked off by a gummie in the pub dunnies. What a weekend.
Excellent usage of cunt Wiggs.
Tell me, has the lockdown changed your surf routine? can you still get out?
Triple stringer, no leg rope, Manly. Wtf Is going on here, really?
Had the bank to himself; another two surfers batted away a little further north.
This sums it up perfectly…….
Vintage surfboard rally to commemorate the AMPOL 64 world titles ?
That would make sense… if it was 2024!
Seems this story broke on Wednesday last week? This part was anti depressive.
Week long preparation for the NRL final maybe?
Paddling out from the pool to the Bower can feel a bit creepy at dawn.