Graphic video: Surfer attacked by Great White shark near Margaret River says, “I was punching it”

"If you want to be part of something that’s alive, and that’s what surfing is to most of us, then you’ve gotta be prepared."

After a relatively light past couple of years Great White-wise around Margaret River, the mystical fish has resurfaced, so to speak, belting a foiling windsurfer and sending ‘em into the drink.

Last night, just before five pm, and between Boat Ramps and the Bombie, a Great White, according to the West Oz gov’s shark tracker app, “bit a foil board causing the rider to fall into the water. The rider was not injured.” 

The surfer, named as “Andy”, according to the local press, “was suddenly sucked under the water, followed by fierce whipping and splashing on the surface.”

“I fell onto it, it was wrapped around me. You’ve got two leashes, you’ve got a leash around your waist and one on your wrist, and it was like in me, and I was like punching it. Then I had my sail, and I jumped up onto my sail just to get out of the water, and then I started yelling for help.”

The incident, as they call hits by Great Whites now, was captured on camera. Watch here.

Pretty sobering viewing. One minute y’got the wind in your hair, and sail, the next you’re dragged into the depths by a Great White.

In 2023, at Boat Ramp, a surfer was hit from below as per the Great White’s modus operandi, survived the blast and paddled to shore where he limped to a nearby cafe and an off-duty nurse stemmed the bleeding while he was driven to Margs hospital. His eight-one Gunther Rohn was belted to hell.

The Margaret River region is notorious for its booming Great White population, as you know, although when world champion Brazilian surfers Italo Ferreira and Gabriel Medina refused to surf a CT event there in 2018 after two nearby attacks in one day, they were described as “weak and conniving” by the celebrated Western Australia author Tim Winton. 

“As someone who’s surfed all over the world and with the machismo and bravado of Brazilians in particular, I thought it was amazing how cowardly those guys were,” he said. “Look, not everybody wants to be in the water the day after two guys have failed the taste test around the corner, but I thought it was a really low act on behalf of those two guys…I just think  if you want to go swimming in a dead ocean, go to a pool, go to a wave pool.huIf you want to kill all the sharks you’re just going to kill the oceans. It’s one of the few places in the world where there are actually real waves.”

Last month, and three hours drive north in the capital city Perth, surfers were warned to stay out of the water due to “multiple Great White shark detections.

These included a chopper spotting a fifteen-foot Great White that was circling offshore near Hillarys Marina, two tagged Great Whites pinging the Scarborough detector, a tagged Great White at Mullaloo, a tagged Great White at Ocean Reef and a tagged Great White at Sorrento. 

Such is the threat from Great Whites, the WA gov offers all residents a two-hundred dollar rebate on approved shark deterrent devices. Although for reasons unknown: specifically excluded are Sharkbanz bracelets, championed by shark attack survivor and trad wife Bethany Hamilton and powered by patented magnetic technology that emits a low-frequency electromagnetic field that disrupts sharks’ electroreceptors.