“That’s probably why you see the thrashing”, she said.
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The shark bumped three-time world champion Mick Fanning off his board Sunday as he waited his turn during the finals of the JBay Open world surfing competition and stirred the public’s worst fears about sharks.
He described the moment he realised the shark was behind him as terrifying, saying: “I was waiting for the teeth to come at me”. “There’s a small depression in my board and my leg wrap (was) bitten”.
Ms Titley said that despite the close-call, the local marine authorities were unlikely to take follow-up action.
“I’ve never been very concerned about sharks where I surf but it’s always in the back of your mind I suppose”.
“We thought Mick was being eaten, it was terrible”, he said. Everyone was just screaming. Already in 2015, there have been 13 unprovoked attacks by sharks, causing one fatality, in Australia.
“About seven years ago we went down in one of those shark cages off South Africa, so I have seen them up close”.
These incidents have led to a string of untested theories, with the North Carolina attacks blamed upon a change in water temperature that attracted a large group of migrating warm-water sharks, such as bull and tiger sharks.
“The video is very full on, I’m sure he got a fair scare and it’s just lucky the rescue boat acted quickly”, he said. If a shark ate a guy did they just DQ him and move everybody behind him in the standings up one spot? “We did sea sweeps with a drone and nothing was picked up”.
The World Surf League cancelled the remainder of the event and Fanning will split the prize money with fellow Australian surfer Julian Wilson, who was also in the water when the attack happened. If viewers and other competitors where horrified watching the attack on live TV, Elizabeth Osborne was numb and reminded of losing another of her children 17-years earlier. “I couldn’t believe what I was seeing”, she told ABC.
“So having more sharks and more surfers and the sharks being more intrigued, I think the writing’s on the wall, really”. I’m just totally tripping out.
Mr Cliff said that while the footage is terrifying, people should not be put off from venturing into South African waters.
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“We kind of coexist with sharks in the water”.
