Jbay is an incredible place and I will go back one day.
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Surfing fans watched in horror as professional wave rider Mick Fanning was attacked during the J-Bay Open in South Africa over the weekend.
Surfer Mick Fanning says it is a miracle that he walked away from his life and death run-in with a shark without a scratch.
“All of [a] sudden, I just had this instinct that something was behind me”, Fanning, aged 34, told the World Surf League website.
Fanning, hidden from the cameras by a wave, managed to punch the shark on the back, a move that bought him a little time.
He admitted he was now dealing with “an emotional mental sort of trauma” and that it would probably take weeks, if not months, to get over.
“I’ll have to go back”. The WSL cancelled the competition after discussions with both surfers. He yelled at Wilson, a fellow Aussie who he was mentoring as well as competing against, to get into shore, but Wilson paddled out towards the danger instead.
“I’ve been surfing for more than 40 years, I have never seen a shark or been intimidated by a shark – intimidated by dolphins and whales, but not sharks”, she said in Sydney. Like, what? The shark’s gonna be like “OH, that guy has a board and a different kind of outfit – I’d better leave him alone”?
He told the Australian after the ordeal: “It came up and he was wrestling it, and I saw he got knocked off his board…”
He said he saw the shark’s fin coming towards him, and then underwater the grey of the shark turned to white as it rolled on its side, the usual manoeuvre before a shark bites.
Fanning was pulled from the water by a nearby rescue jet-ski that rushed to his aid. As a kid we would swim in the ocean and you would hear … the lifeguards blowing on their whistles and all the kids would just run out of the water. “He’s gone under, and I felt couldn’t get there quick enough”, Wilson said. “I think Julian is even in a tougher situation because he was witnessing everything and he thought he was going to see his friend die”.
Fanning took to social media to express his thanks to Wilson and his rescuers.
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“I knew there was only one possible reason that would ever happen in a contest and that’s if someone got attacked by a shark”, Slater was quoted as saying. “I think Mick will regroup”, he said.
