Cabarita named sharkiest surf spot in world after third shark attack in 15 months

"I was just waiting for it the third time to hit. I thought this third time is going to get me.”

Cabarita is a beach town of just one hundred souls midway tween the Gold Coast and Byron Bay. It is famous for three things: Chippa Wilson grew up there, there’s a thousand-dollar-a-night boutique hotel called Halcyon House that was built on the grave on the ol sixty-dollars-a-night Hideaway Hotel and, look yonder, there’s a C-grade righthand point popular with GC day-trippers.

Three famous things? Make it four. After hosting its fourth shark attack since 2020, three of ’em in the last fifteen months, Cabarita now listed as one of the sharkiest surf spots in the world.

Yesterday, sea dog Matt Devine, who is still surfing at a stately fifty-three, was filmed getting lifted off his board by what he says was a big bull shark.

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“Sitting on my board and then bang, just a shark come up from underneath and flip me off, knock me off my board into the water,” Devine said. “I just thought, this thing’s big and then, yeah, I was just waiting for it the third time to hit. I thought this third time is going to get me.”

Devine wasn’t real phased by it and said he’d be back in the water next time he had a little time off work.

Last June, a sixteen-year-old kid had to be airlifted to hozzy after being hit by a Great White. The attack, on a gloomy and wet mid-winter afternoon, was first reported by the on-the-spot Nicka35, a freelance reporter who covers on all things surf on the Gold Coast.

“People in the lineup did mention they saw a massive fin swimming and hanging out for quite a long time after the attack,” he posted.

Two months later,  Cabarita surfer Brad Ross, surfing his B-grade local point in crystal-clear waist-deep water on a dreamy later winter’s morn, was hit by what was initially thought to be a twelve-foot Great White although this has been subsequently upgraded to a fifteen-footer.

A surf cam and a drone captured the almost-final moments of the surfer as the Great White, a protected species in Australia since 1999,  turned the tranquil tableaux into a scene out of the fabled Jaws series. Kelly Slater was quick to lend his perspective to the event writing on Instagram, “Lucky to be alive.”

According to witnesses interviewed by the state broadcaster, “The man was sitting on his board and the shark literally bit the board behind his butt.

“The board just popped, like it exploded, and it flew up in the air and by this time there was a man up on the rocks going, ‘Oi, come in.’ “The board exploded, one half went that way, the other half went that way, there was just whitewash and debris everywhere.”

A little over two hours after Ross was nearly sent to the heavens, the Department of Primary Industries caught and released a fifteen-foot Great White, caught on one of its smart drumlines, nearby.

Six months earlier, Jed Smith, the darkly sexy half of the Ain’t That Swell team, had listed dire warnings from Cabarita locals about increased Great White activity.

Cabarita: Big White at Caba yesterday. Went under the lads at South Beach. 2.5 m White right under the lads and then basked around the corner of the headland.

In 2020, and just after the Tweed Heads Pro at Cabarita, foilboarder and noted local surfer Christian Bungate was hit by a Great White at the site of last weekend’s Tweed Heads Pro, the animal, which was described as a “tank”, leaving behind a tooth in the foil’s carbon fibres.

That hit came two weeks after Nick Slater was killed by a Great White at the Superbank, forty-five minutes drive north, four months after Rob Pedretti was killed by a  Great White at Kingscliff, ten minutes drive north, one month after longboarder Chantelle Doyle was pulled out of a Great White’s mouth by her husband at Port Macquarie, a few hours south, and two months after teenager Mani Hart-Deville was killed by a Great White at Wooli, a couple of hours south. 

Foiler Bungate knew it was a close call. 

“It was like there was an oil slick next to me, it was so big. It came up so slowly, and I literally shit myself and kicked it as hard as I could with my right leg. I’m 100 per cent sure if I was on a normal surfboard it would’ve given the shark clear access to get straight back at me and it probably would’ve taken out my stomach. Instead it caught the wing of my foil board, hence why there’s a bloody tooth in it. I left my board and I crawled up the beach and I lay on my stomach bawling my eyes out.”

One week ago, shark hunter Joel Nancarrow warned surfers to exercise “extreme caution” after an early start to the bull shark season.

They ride the current and duck into the rivers to drop their pups, conditions are absolutely perfect for them so just keep an eye out your in northern NSW right down to port Mac over the next month.

And then,

Oh, and if you’re in Perth, you might wanna find another sport. See drone vision below.

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