Why surfers won’t stop
“YOU’D better come back!” my wife called out as I kissed her and my 13month-old son goodbye, grabbed my wetsuit and strapped my board to the roof of my car.
It was just a week after Mick Fanning’s close encounter with a great white in South Africa and two days after a fatal shark attack in Tasmania.
The terrifying vision was still fresh in her thoughts.
For me, on the other hand, the thought of being taken by a shark was the last thing on my mind. I was just hanging out for my weekly surf on my day off.
But I get where she’s coming from. Most people think surfers are crazy and they’re probably right.
Five minutes after World Surf League Commissioner Kieren Perrow sounded three blasts of the hooter to abandon the final of the J-Bay Open, four local surfers could be seen paddling out to make the most of the empty waves.
Their argument, like mine, is that each year more people are killed by vending machines than sharks. But try telling that to your wife.
I’m addicted to surfing. For me, it’s the ultimate stress relief, a chance to head home down the Surf Coast and relax.
No fumes, no noise and no worries – and when you combine it with the adrenalin rush, there’s nothing like it.
I once heard an expression, “Only a surfer knows the feeling”, and that pretty much sums it up.
But my wife isn’t the only one who worries about me each time I enter the ocean. My mum shares the same concern and I suppose there’s a reason for her paranoia.
In the winter of 2009 I decided to beat the crowds and make the most of the pumping swell and clean conditions at Point Impossible near Breamlea.
I paddled out just before sunrise with two other desperados I’d never met before.
Being a 200-metre paddle to the outer reef I sat up on my twin-fin surfboard and let the current take me out to the break as I took a breather.
Then all of a sudden something surged up from under the water hitting me in the thigh, pushing me off my board.
I panicked. I was in almost complete darkness and I couldn’t tell what hit me.
I yelled out to the other two surfers who paddled towards me. But as I clambered onto my board it rose up and knocked me off again.
I punched and pushed whatever it was away.
It left a black bruise on my leg and to this day I still have no idea what it was.
The other surfers said they saw a fin but weren’t sure what it was either.
My surfing mates thought it was funny, nicknaming me “Dolphin Puncher”. At work, Danny Frawley, Craig Hutchison and Liam Pickering labelled me ‘SAV’ (Shark Attack Victim).
In stark contrast my family freaked out.
Mum bought me a Shark Shield to take on my surf trip to Fiji. It’s an expensive rope-like gizmo that attaches to your board and sends out electronic pulses to scare sharks.
But after it flicked up and zapped me in the groin and then wrapped around my neck after getting dumped, it was time to put it on eBay.
So despite the recent shark scares and my own encounter with a “sea creature”, it hasn’t stopped me doing what I love.
The next surfing adventure I’ve booked is a trip to Western Australia in November. I wonder what random anti-shark device I’ll get for my birthday this year. Sean Sowerby is a 7 News Weekend sports presenter/sports reporter who was born and raised on the Bellarine Peninsula. Twitter @SeanSowerby7