Lennox Head and surrounding beaches closed after surfer attacked by shark 

"It takes a micro-second to see clearly what it is. A White shark. Coming in very hot straight at me."

Thoughts and prayers and so on for our one-time tour correspondent Steve “Longtom” Shearer after his prized home pointbreak, Lennox Head, was shuttered yesterday morning following a shark attack on a surfer at nearby Flat Rock in East Ballina. 

The surfer was belted off his board by the shark at Flat Rock, a few beaches south of Lennox, just after Skennars and Sharpes Beaches. No wounds and he made it to the sand with all crucial limbs still attached.

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The attack comes as nerves remain taut following, what was it, five, six, attacks in less than a week, all by bull sharks, and only a month or so after a surfer was killed and her boyfriend maimed by a bull shark at  at Crowdy Head, a few hundred clicks away. 

First person: I was stalked by a Great White at Lennox Head

Some years ago, Longtom wrote of his home town being “transformed into one of the shark attack capitals of the World” and of being stalked by a Great White at Lennox. 

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 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?