Just received a text msg from my son Ryan at Torquay. His mate had been out on a surf club IRB warning surfers to get out of the water.....there was a 5-6 metre white pointer spotted cruising off Winki. (next to Bells, for those that don't know it).
The guy in the IRB actually saw it. Ryan was about to head off for a surf. I don't think I'll tell his Mum....!

I thought I kicked something in the water yesterday...

DJ

Sharks are nasty!! but i surf that much down here on my own i try not to think about them. Were i went suping today which was awesome , glassy 4ft waves , really long rides, was at bridgewater bay which is right next door to Australias biggest permanent seal colony. The guy that does the seal tours down here had his motor stopped last year by a 6m great nasty biting the prop on his boat, he has video footage of it!

if its your time to go then its your time to go

up here on the north coast nsw there are plenty of sharks and see them regularly but the only thing is most of them are small (i keep telling myself that)

with the sup you can see so much more marinelife than being at water level and i personnally love being on a 10 foot plus oil tanker than my 6 foot shortboard

nothing worse than having the theme tune of jaws in the back of your head as you are paddling arond out the back by yourself

about 8years ago while surfing in the old boardriders local comp i took off on a wave and as i came off the bottom watched as a 4 foot bronze whaler over took me from my inside(like i dropped in on it)i frooze like a stunned mullet

it travelled about 3m in front of me in the wave face charged direction 180 degrees came back at me changed direction again 180 knocking the bottom of my board with its tail and like a shot of lightning took off through the back of the wave with a large splash

stunned i pulled a clumsy reo and pulled off the back of the wave right next to one of my mates that was in my heat he saw the whole thing and was jibbering saying bullsh@t lets get the f@ck out of here

i just laughed and said i need one more good scoring wave to win the heat

he went in while i paddled back out and scrapped into a nice one got the score and won the heat

i walked up the beach to where all the crew and judges were gathered one smart arse said sorry mate you lost the heat cause you dropped in on the shark thus losing the highest scoring wave

they all decided not to send the grommets out for the next heat

that same day a guy at brooms head 20km north of minnie water got his leg chewwed up by a shark and was lucky to survive after having to struggle back from the beach to get help

as i was telling my missis playing down the situation that night at home the story of the shark attack at brooms head came on the tv

she went ballistic when i told her i went back out to get one more wave...lol...

dogman

go and see sharkwater and you will probably come out thining differently about sharks.
we have reduced shark populations by 90% - think about that - 90% in the last 50 years or so, all through fishing and hunting. scientists are unsure of the consequences of wiping out the predator at the top of theefood chain, but agree that it could potentially be catastrophic in th enear future if we keep killing sharks at this rate.
sharks have always been painted as enemies of humans but when you look at all the info and statistics rationally it makse sense not to be afraid.
you have more chance of being killed by an elephant or a beesting or a car!

its a good movie even if you go just to watch Paul Watson from the Sea Shephered chasing and trying to sink a costa rican fishing boat that was finning sharks illegally. or the phillipino mafia and their undercover shark fin factories all over the world! Apparently there is more money in shark finning than drugs these days! no wonder all teh sharks are dissappearing.

JonathanC said...

Hey Oliver, keep looking for the dolphins. Saturday I paddled from Green Point up to St Kilda, on the way back saw three dolphins off Point Ormond, paddled hard to catch them and had the most amazing ten or fifteen minutes as I paddled along with them (heading downwind back to the city the buggers!). They immediately started swimming around the board, all three under then coming up just in front of me - I mean just in front like inches away but never touched the board, swimming below me and beside. The really amazing thing was the sense of fun and connection, I've snorkelled with manta rays at Coral Bay which was very special but the manta's even heading right at you don't even seem to react to you, this was quite different. Really something, I had my phone in a waterproof bag in my Camel Pack and thought about mucking around trying to get it out to take a photo but in the end decided to just enjoy the experience.

Nice....We had a few at St Kilda beach the other day also...BTW..Green point to St Kilda....That's a good effort.

DJ

Just about to go for a surf right now, so really shouldnt be reading this! I know what oliver means, looking into the deep green ocean also seems to put a bit of a trance on me. When i went out yesterday on my shortboard after getting straight off the sup, i was getting annoyed i couldnt see sets coming, hope i dont get into lazy habbits

Hey Gorgo, you must be the only one about at Waratah Bay at the moment. I'm hoping to head down to Walkerville Sth this w/e. I hope the weather holds up as I've always wanted to paddle from Bird Rock up to Bear Gully.

I'm looking forward to seeing some marine action other than starfish which seem to be strewn like litter in some parts of the bay at the moment. I wonder if they ate all the jellyfish which were around a month or two ago.

oliver said...

Hey Gorgo, you must be the only one about at Waratah Bay at the moment. ...

There was some kind of surf school out on Saturday and a longboarder on Sunday.

There were boats fishing in the inlet but no kiters or sail boarders.

The GF shouted me a couple of weekends in the cabins at the caravan park for my birthday. All I have to do is drive us down, surf and kite and burn stuff on the bbq. Way better present than jocks and socks or crappy CDs.

Revvin said...

I noticed an article in the local rag today saying that "experts" say it was a basking shark and it was mainly spotted off a break called boobs.

Even if they arent talking it down you'd still crap yourself with a basking shark coming at you!

I want to check out boobs...

DJ