"I don't say this much, but on the beach, I didn't want to live anymore."
Ten years ago, back when Reunion Island was under siege from an infestation of bull sharks and with no political will to ice a few of the cunts to bring the sitch back to relatively normality, similar to Australia in 2026, bodyboarder Laurent Chardard paddled out at Boucan Canot, a netted beach.
Red flags flew on the beach because a two-metre hole had been detected in the seven-hundred-metre net earlier that day. Still, safest joint on the island and, yeah, the surf was pumping.
As Laurent, now a para-Olympian, recalls:
I paddled out and surfed for about thirty minutes. At some point I caught a wave and drifted away from the other surfers. Paddling back out to the peak, where everyone sits waiting for waves, I put my right arm in the water and a shark came up and grabbed it. Exactly like a crocodile death roll, dragging me under.
I punched it with my left hand until it let go, and that’s where I got the scar on that hand. I climbed back onto my board and checked the damage. My arm was almost completely severed. I started yelling to warn the other surfers, and everyone cleared the water.
I had a choice: ride a wave in, or wait it out further from shore. I was scared that if I tried to catch a wave, with my left hand already wrecked, I wouldn’t be able to hold my board, and I’d end up underwater with no way to know if I could get back to the surface. So I chose to wait.
The shark came back a second time, this time for my leg. I hit it again with my left leg, climbed back onto the board, and saw the damage a second time. That’s when the jet ski reached me and pulled me out.
I don’t say this much, but on the beach, I didn’t want to live anymore. You can come back missing a leg or an arm, but that was genuinely the first thought I had the moment I got out of the water. Then I woke up in the hospital, and something flipped. I told myself: I’m still here, I got lucky, time to move forward. I was in the hospital for three months.
My friends bought me a small float and towed me around the lagoon, in quotes, to get me back near the water without pressure. I’m glad I never developed a fear of it. I figured before I could surf again, I needed to relearn how to swim. So I did that first. Once I could swim again, I could surf again.
The wildest part of Laurent’s story, and which he doesn’t tell, is the aftermath of the attack.
A local restaurateur went to the local police station and said Laurent should be charged with an offence, blaming his restaurant being deserted. The cops shrugged and told him to take Laurent to court.
If y’didn’t know, the attacks got so out of hand the island began a targeted shark removal program in 2018, using smart drumlines to catch bull and tiger sharks near surf zones. Over the seven-year run from 2019 to 2026, they’ve pulled more than 500 sharks out of the water, roughly 430 tiger sharks and 70 bull sharks.
The current phase of the program is set to wind down around August 2026.
Net effect: seven years without a fatal attack (last one was 2019), and lineups at spots like Boucan Canot and St-Leu have filled back up with surfers, surf schools, and pros again, though it’s paired with other measures like exclusion nets, boat patrols, freediver spotters and AI-camera shark detection.
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You’d hope he was left handed to begin with.
With a hand that big the shark could have fed his family for a week !
“Over the seven-year run from 2019 to 2026, they’ve pulled more than 500 sharks out of the water, roughly 430 tiger sharks and 70 bull sharks”
No shark fatalities on Réunion since 2019, you say?
Not a coincidence – are you paying attention, Australian Federal Government?
To save lives, it is way past time for a CULL of sharks over 3 meters in Australian waters –
and how did this happen ..because fisherman on reunion took all the reef sharks for HK shark fin soup…the Bulls and tigers moved in ….and here we are messing with the environment..still …..
I find it remarkable that anyone affiliated to the zionist ethno state is not fearing for their safety. The pure hatred for zio vermin in Sydney is a t breaking point….the afp is investigating returned idf for war crimes….imagine we get names and addresses….vermin bait traps poison cyanide in a rat chamber
I just dream of Gina Reinhardt…..yes..yes I’ve done alot of baaad things in life.
Delusional rantings – nothing wrong with defending the State of Israel; after all, Israel is a real country and the Jewish people ARE the indigenous inhabitants of the Land of Israel and have every right to defend their sovereign state.
“Palestine” on the other hand, is a fantasy and a fiction as there has NEVER BEEN a sovereign nation-state in this area called “Palestine” in 3000 years of recorded history and the “Palestinians” did not exist as a people until Yasser Arafat (himself an Egyptian) invented the “Palestinian” identity in 1964.
Before 1964, these people were just random Arabs, which they still are.
Como?
homo?
Dysfunctional erectus?
And, sirs, six months later this gorgeous man became my husband.
Egypt had crocs… Happy 250 4th of July you beautiful sceptics!….get a Donald up Yas..x
Fuck I just had the craziest dream.
In it, I was surfing a morphed version of Punta Roca, only it had cliffs in front and was, way longer. It was like a real 6-8, water was glassy and aqua colored, light offshore and not too crowded. I was off to the side a little when a good one showed up and I hacked a couple good backside tags out of it. I paddled back out stoked that I was figuring out the setup which was a little tricky. Then right away a bomb came in, I nabbed it and got a little bit ahead to let it build up, but as I was bottom turning it jacked up and I just pulled in to a huge wide open no hands barrel, I was deep and I could see the fold so I rode up on it and it spit me out flying, then jacked up again into a second and much longer tube, again no hands and deep as, at full speed. It was so long and fast I wasn’t sure I was going to make it, and again I could see the fold and felt like I was getting a little low , so I again rode up a little higher and again just got blasted out with the spit, fucking amazing!
I had to do an awkward cutback cause I was so far out on the flats, then it got a little foamy but I kept going to see how long I could go, next thing I know I am riding it down the foresty path to the very bottom of the point, an immeasurable amount of time and distance, to a shopping center parking lot below. It was crazy emotional, and locals were curious how I got there, I walked around a little wondering how I was going to get back to the point, but then an opened up converted VW bus-like collectivo pulled up and told me it was 40 pesos to the top.
I jumped in, and up the road we went, I was elated, almost in tears and in a dream like state, pumped that I had finally broken the rut of not getting a legit one in quite awhile, riding the high of accomplishment and thinking of Longtom and how I was gonna tell him to whop that up ya.
Then I woke up, realizing it was a dream but not even caring, still buzzing with the sensations you get from threading a perfect backside no handed smoking double pit beast.
It’s still dark as I lay in bed writing this on a totally inappropriate space below the line, mainly to put in down on paper so I can remember the moment before it fades away.
Straight up the best dream I have ever had.
I’ll find you something fun to wear that goes with all your feelings… I love dreams but unfortunately try to take as many things to forget em as I can… Most nights I don’t I’m wrestling alligators/crocodiles in a constant struggle…thank god for meds…we live underwater….thank christ… Da Buddha’s and any other fuckers that give a fuckers!… X
I’d look pretty in pink, or so I’m told.
My comment above belongs here
Dang! Epic dream!
Sick one screw foot…waiting on scores!
A surprising amount of my surf dreams involve cliffs, which is strange as none of my local breaks have cliffs close by.
Also, for decades my surf dreams never included any actual surfing. It was quite bizarre. Like surfing blue balls. But I think sometime within the last few years i finally, successfully made it into the water and caught a wave.
I feel ya, so many dreams where it was pumping but I never could make it to the lineup.
Probably only had like 6 or 7 where I was actually riding one, last night being the best one by far.
Do crocodile attack survivors describe it as “like a shark death roll” ?
Or has this Laurent bloke had attacks from both, and can make a proper comparison ?
These are the kind of crocodile vs shark questions that need to be answered…
Ask mo…he know!
You’re my kinda pedant!