“It was like hitting the biggest concrete slab and then I felt my fin sink into it…”
A couple of weeks after a teenage girl was attacked and killed while swimming at Bribe Island on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, a teen surfer a few miles north has described hitting a shark while taking off on a wave, his fin sinking into the fish’s side.
Tim Bange, a nineteen-year-old shredder, from Currimundi, a little coastal town midway between Wurtula and Dicky Beach at the southern end of the Sunny Coast, saw a fin burning through the water out of the corner of his eye.
Kid figured, that doesn’t look right, doesn’t feel right, and turned around to grab the next rollercoaster in.
“As I took off and bottom turned it felt like I hit the biggest concrete slab and then I felt my fin sink in. I popped up and was in a total panic. I looked at my board and there was this massive fin mark through the tail of my board and my fin had been completely ripped out.”
Tim caught the next wave and felt his board collapse beneath him, buckled when he hit the shark. In the beach carpark he recorded this video.
The collision didn’t come as a total surprise.
“There’s been heaps of shark encounters lately and then there was the fatal attack on Bribe Island.”
White, Tiger, Bull?
“Heaps of bullies around at the moment,” Tim says, adding he wasn’t particularly rattled by it all.
“It kinda rattled me for a second but I was back out today and it felt fun. I was sweet. I actually snapped my leggie on my last wave and had to swim in and that felt a bit eerie.”
Tim lives with his parents who are currently holidaying in Japan and who missed the whole thing. He told ’em what happened via text but is yet to get a reply.
“I gave ’em the full rundown and still haven’t heard back,” he says. “They sound busy.”
