I do think they should have had a final. Wait a day give jet-ski assist.
If its to be eaten, no problem with it whatsoever.
For the sharks? The thought of a shark on a jetski is terrifying.
Looks to me like the Shark was coming up to investigate if Fanning would be a good meal or not. Got tangled in his leach and at that point the Shark was more concerned with getting free from the leach then in taking an investigating bite out of Fanning to see if he was a good food source.
Mick Fanning is one lucky man. If the Shark had not come in contact with the leash, Fanning would most likely have been bitten by that shark. Good Documentary on Nova last night very fitting and timely " Why Sharks Attack"
The freakiest thing for me is that shark approached from **directly **behind Fanning. I agree with artz, that shark was coming in for a snack and had the leash not been involved…
Another thing, I’m sure everyone notices when directly after a contect ends for the day piles of surfers go out. I didn’t see too many paddling back out after Fanning’s incident. However, there were a handful that did go out. Would you? Go to around 47:24 in the video below. Prior to this you can see surfers running up to the jump in spot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VQJ5_NyDDs
interesting comments ,reality until your own encounter you never know your reaction,everyone has or wants a story ,some believe they are shark experts?,everyone should know better and just say glad your ok ,i am sure it will rattle him for a while get back out there as soon as you can Mick. godspeed…
As I was walking into deeper water at my usual beach, a couple of sea lions were hauling ass towards me and the beach. Didn’t think much of it until I was ready to paddle out and saw an 8-9’ GW juvenile swim by. One other guy out farther down the beach. I waited about 5 minutes and paddled out, didn’t think much more about it other than feeling privileged to have seen such a beautiful shark. The juveniles are only interested in fish, never hear of them even checking surfers out. If it had been South Africa, however, I might have been more careful about it. Been bumped by tiger sharks a time or two and always left the water after that happened.
If the shark being eaten is not an endangered species and part of a sustainable fishery, then bring it on, I’ll eat it with you. My point is three-fold: 1/ I don’t think people should kill sharks for fun, 2/ I don’t think people should kill endangered species of shark, 3/ I don’t feel good about people taking obvious pleasure in a shark’s death.
I have a good deal going with sharks. I don’t eat them when they are on land and they don’t eat me when I’m in the water. So far it’s been working great.
Hey Surfifty, can you give me your agent’s number? I need to get in on that deal…
I was surfing Supertubes midmorning on a weekday in July or August of '98 on a 5 foot clean but grey strong offshore day when a local told me a white pointer was spotted not long before.
Not long after this, as a wave approached, a large dorsal fin came up through an approaching wave coming at us as we were scrambling for position. Then the tail thrashed, and the shark submerged in the murky water, and I saw it was coming in our direction from about 25 feet away.
I freaked out and started paddling in like the freaked lunatic I was, as did about 10 or 12 surfers on either side of me we all kind of clustered together. I caught the wave that the shark submerged on, we all did, got to our feet for the drop and straightened out and proned out, presumably except for the guys closest to open face who rode the wave.
Coming in over the surgeon’s table at low tide was not fun. I was standing in about 18 inches of water, as A British guy next to me was so freaked he tried to jump across a crevasse in front of us as a 4 foot line of whitewater was approaching and slipped on landing and crushed his rail under his arm, and had the whitewater fill on over him and he came up bloody.
A bunch of guys got out of the water. A higher percentage of guys did not. Either they were unaware, or did not care. Many had to notice 15 or 20 guys scrambling out of the water over the least desirable area to do so. Some people were yelling shark. The offshores had to carry the sound out to some of them.
I called it a day and just watched and was torn watching beautiful Jbay peeling away with only 1/4 of the frustrating crowd, and contemplating the overwhelming and utter terror I just felt. I was in Jbay for another few weeks, and that incident was always there in my mind, and any abnormal chop, or multiple guys leaving the lineup at once had me freaking out.
I was not surprised at all to see waves being ridden in the background after Mick’s encounter.
I wonder what the ratio is. How many sharks I’ve seen, versus how many sharks have seen me. I’ve seen about 6, and 3 of those were small enough not to be a concern.
I was impressed by Mick’s buddy who paddled over to help him. Courage. Mike
You would have done the same Mike.
Thanks Chris. I’d like to think so. But, does anyone really know until it happens? Mike
The other side of the story:
http://newsthump.com/2015/07/20/shark-survives-attack-by-australian-surfer/
I’ve been thinking about this issue overe the last couple of days and I reckon the organisers could do a bit more to look after the surfers. Here’s what I’d be thinking about anyway:
1/ Keep a jetski near where the surfers are sitting out the back at all times. That way if a shark is spotted they can assist in seconds. The jet-skis did really well to get to Mick as quickly as they did, but had there been one right on the spot they could have chased the shark away immediately.
2/ Use jetskis to take surfers back out to the line-up as they do in other comps. This would reduce the risk of a surfer getting munched while they’re paddling out.
3/ Consider having a drone above the line-up at all times looking for sharks.
I don’t really know, but it seems that maybe with no one in the water but the competitors, the shark wandered into an area that it normally would have avoided had there been 50-100 people paddling around. The quiet area and the lone target might be more attractive to the shark than the potential banquet offered on a normal day at J-Bay.
Update - are the sharks after mick?
http://nypost.com/2015/07/30/surfer-in-tv-shark-attack-makes-terrifying-on-camera-return/?ref=yfp