Shark? Shark?
Is it just me or is everyone in denial over sharks on the sunshine coast?
I have spent a lot of time swimming in deep water off the coast. It’s my favourite place to be in the whole wide world, where the water is clean and clear and completely black beneath you.
I’ve never seen a shark, not one that would eat you anyway and I have a bizarre conviction that it’s not the way I’m going to die (I’m thinking more cancer or car accident…fyi) I don’t know if you can have those sort of premonitions, but I am convinced I won’t die in a shark attack….
My conviction is even more bizarre, given that I actually know two people who have been eaten by sharks.
A boy I went to school with in Margaret River, David Weir, became a professional fisherman. He was two years older than me, and I hadn’t seen him for many years, but when we were in our early twenties he was taken while diving from a tinny at Augusta, I think. No one was there to witness the event, but they found his remains later, so there was no doubt how he had died.
John and I also had a young next door neighbour in Geraldton, who left to go diving off Exmouth up north…the next we heard was that he had been taken too.
I think it would be a terrible way to die, like the abalone diver at Eden yesterday, it seems that sharks like to taste you first, just a little nibble, then come back in to finish the job.
So are there any sharks on the Sunshine Coast? When I was training for Mudjimba to Mooloolaba swim in 2002 an Alex Surf Club stalwart told me I had nothing to worry about. He said the last time Alex had been shut for a shark sighting was in the sixties, and it turned out to be a big palm frond.
That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it!
I have spent a lot of time swimming in deep water off the coast. It’s my favourite place to be in the whole wide world, where the water is clean and clear and completely black beneath you.
I’ve never seen a shark, not one that would eat you anyway and I have a bizarre conviction that it’s not the way I’m going to die (I’m thinking more cancer or car accident…fyi) I don’t know if you can have those sort of premonitions, but I am convinced I won’t die in a shark attack….
My conviction is even more bizarre, given that I actually know two people who have been eaten by sharks.
A boy I went to school with in Margaret River, David Weir, became a professional fisherman. He was two years older than me, and I hadn’t seen him for many years, but when we were in our early twenties he was taken while diving from a tinny at Augusta, I think. No one was there to witness the event, but they found his remains later, so there was no doubt how he had died.
John and I also had a young next door neighbour in Geraldton, who left to go diving off Exmouth up north…the next we heard was that he had been taken too.
I think it would be a terrible way to die, like the abalone diver at Eden yesterday, it seems that sharks like to taste you first, just a little nibble, then come back in to finish the job.
So are there any sharks on the Sunshine Coast? When I was training for Mudjimba to Mooloolaba swim in 2002 an Alex Surf Club stalwart told me I had nothing to worry about. He said the last time Alex had been shut for a shark sighting was in the sixties, and it turned out to be a big palm frond.
That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it!
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