Things that go bump under water

SHARKS are often touted as the biggest threat in the deep, blue sea — but I don’t consider that to be true.

The ocean predators stir up immense hysteria across the nation whenever they’re spotted, but I think it is quite unwarranted.

Having surfed the beaches of the Great Ocean Road on numerous occasions, I’ve had a number of close calls — but none of them came as a result of a shark attack.

Rocks have to be one of the most dangerous aspects of the coast.

Hidden beneath the swell of the tide and barely visible from a distance, they would surely injure a lot more surfers than a stray great white.

I was spending the week in Apollo Bay with a group of friends when we decided to hire surfboards and take on the waves.

All of us could swim — very well — but none of us were particularly experienced at riding waves.

The water appeared deep and clear, but none of us realised a group of rocks were sitting just beneath the surface. The whitewash from the waves made it hard to see beneath the surface up close, and I didn’t realise I was gliding over a bank of boulders until it was too late. I was launched backwards from my board and distinctly remember feeling the back of my head strike a rock. I can’t begin to overstate how lucky I was that I maintained consciousness, because if that hit was any harder I could have died. My friends weren’t quite sure what had happened as I stumbled out of the water nursing my head. I sat on the sand and took a deep breath — not completely sure of my whereabouts.

A surfer came up to me and asked what happened to which I told him that I’d hit my head on a rock.

He replied along the lines of: “That’s nothing unusual for us.”

On further prompting, he told me he’d collided with rocks on six separate occasions — two in which he lost consciousness.

What is even more stunning is that he was still surfing, despite those close calls.

I asked if he had considered giving up the surf to protect his wellbeing.

He said something along the lines of: “You can’t live your life waiting for something bad to happen.”

Sound advice, but I’ll still be extra careful next time.