And while both men were clearly shaken, they found time for some humour during a packed press conference with Fanning replying: “Thanks for not eating me” when asked if he had a message for the shark. “It was terrifying”, Camp director Kyle Shaw said.
Advertisement
Despite the hype, Fanning was just grateful for his escape, telling the media: “To walk away from a shark attack is a miracle…”
“It’s got through me though some hard times in life”.
“I don’t know why it didn’t bite. Just thought of more of an emotional, mental sort of trauma right now”, he told reporters after touching down in Sydney on Tuesday afternoon. “Before I knew it, the boat was there”.
Queensland, Wilson’s home state, has nominated him for a bravery award.
“At that stage I was just screaming and I was telling Jules to get in, I was worried about him coming after me”, Fanning said.
“I just went straight into panic mode”.
But he said on Instagram that: “Jbay is an incredible place and I will go back one day”, referring to Jeffreys Bay.
Even Hollywood star Russell Crowe commented on Twitter. 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.
Surfing, he said, gives him a sense of balance.
“Thanks for not eating me”, he said, joking about his interaction with the shark. His daughter Elizabeth married John Fanning from Malin Head, Co Donegal, in 1968 and they emigrated to Australia in 1971.
“Mick was probably lucky that there were a lot of people around him to help him out of the water as fast as possible”. I didn’t see teeth.
She has spoken to 7 News of her horror while watching the attack.
Wilson was paddling toward Fanning and later said that he believed if he could get there with his board, he’d at least have a weapon to distract the shark, which he estimated was at least twice the size of his mate and childhood hero.
Fanning was picked up by basic safety boats and was unharmed. That is how I felt when the shark attacked me. A swimmer was killed by a Great White shark at Albatross Point close to Jeffrey’s Bay in 2013.
Advertisement
At the finals of the World Surfing League’s J-Bay Open on Sunday, a life-or-death battle played out on the South African beach, and it was all captured live on TV. Because of that, they have each other’s backs. “But then when you see a champion surfer and you have a three camera shoot and an overhead shot, you say, ‘Oh my goodness, it could happen anywhere.'”. Fortunately on that occasion the animal just turned away. “It gets creepy”, he said, adding he no longer surfs alone. “It was by far the scariest thing I have ever been through and am still rattled”, the caption read. “I’ll be back out there, yeah”.
