Shark attack Western Australia (WA)

Sydney Morning Herald :: 11 May 2008

A Western Australian beach remains closed on Sunday morning after a Perth man was attacked by a shark while swimming there.

Jason Cull, 37, was about 80 metres off Middleton Beach on the state’s south coast on Saturday morning when a four metre white pointer shark, one of three circling the area, attacked him.

He underwent emergency surgery for lacerations to his left leg and was in a stable condition, an Albany Hospital spokesperson said.

Joanne Lucas, a volunteer at the local surf club heard Mr Cull’s cries for help and dashed into the sea, pulling him to safety.

Albany Surf Club spokesman Tom Marron told AAP that sea rescue volunteers and a Fisheries and Marine officer spent most of Saturday trying to move the three white pointer sharks away from the beach, but they wouldn’t go.

„So we’ve closed the beach. We’ll go back (today), put some crafts in the water and have a plane up again and just check out what’s around, what we can see, and we’ll make a decision about opening the beach then.“

Mr Marron said the entire beach, between Middleton Beach and Emu Point in Albany, will remain closed until further notice.

Albany is around 450km south-east of Perth.

© 2008 AAP
Source: SMH

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Shark attack in Mexico – Surfer killed in shark attack

smh.com.au :: 30/04/2008

An American surfer has been killed in a shark attack off Mexico’s southern Pacific coast, officials say. The San Francisco man bled to death on Monday after a shark bit his right thigh, leaving a 38-centimetre wound, the Guerrero state Public Safety Department said in a statement on Tuesday. The US embassy in Mexico could not confirm the man’s name, but local authorities identified him as a 24-year-old who was surfing with a fellow American. The other man was not injured.

The attack occurred at the Troncones beach, about 45 minutes west by car from the beach resort of Ixtapa. The statement said the victim suffered wounds „that reached from the hip to the knee, exposing the femur“. The victim was still alive when he was brought back to the beach. It took so long for the ambulance to reach the relatively isolated and undeveloped beach that a bystander took the victim to a local hospital in his car.

The man died from loss of blood a few minutes after reaching the hospital, the statement said.

Shark attacks are relatively rare in Mexico.

In 2006, the International Shark Attack File at the Florida Museum of Natural History reported only one attack in Mexico, which was not fatal. Meanwhile, a shark expert says an autopsy has confirmed a great white killed a 66-year-old swimmer in the waters off San Diego last week. An investigator from the Medical Examiner’s Office said two shark’s tooth fragments were recovered from David Martin’s body.

Los Angeles-area shark expert Ralph Collier, who assisted with the autopsy, said the fragments indicated the shark was a great white up to to five metres long.

Martin was bitten while training for a triathlon on Friday morning. He quickly died from blood loss.

About 30 kilometres of coastline were closed after the attack, but authorities reopened the beaches on Monday without incident.

AP

Source: smh.com.au

 

Surf Solomon Islands – Scoping the Solomons

Source: www.coastalwatch.com
Text and photos: Brad Malyon

As surfers most of us embrace that sense of adventure that is part of a well-deserved surf trip. Whether it’s half an hour up or down the coast or boarding a dodgy chicken boat in Padang Harbour, it doesn’t matter, its all about leaving the hustle and bustle of everyday life. We all love it and in most cases it’s all about that “search” for perfection that drives our wandering souls. So when I received a phone call from Coastalwatch editor Horvath to document a surf trip with three amazingly talented pro surfers to some out of the way destination I jumped at the chance, saying yes before I even knew where in the world I was going.

All I comprehended after my first briefing was that we were off to the Solomon Islands, somewhere out in the Pacific.

Fast forward to when I was gazing through the window of our trusty twin otter plane overlooking a series of perfect reef passes with Californian Benji Weatherly, and coolie rippers Shaun Harrington and Brent Dorrington alongside me, and I knew we were in for something special.

>> Read the whole story on Coastalwatch.com

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Surfer killed by shark off NSW coast

Sydney Morning Herald :: 08/04/2008

A 16-year-old surfer has died after being attacked by a shark off the NSW north coast.

The boy died at North Wall Beach at Ballina after suffering large bites to the leg and body, a Surf Life Saving NSW spokesman says. The attack took place around 8.30am (AEST) while the boy was bodyboarding with a friend.

„Basically we know that shortly after eight o’clock this morning, two boys were surfing, or bodysurfing on bodyboards, adjacent to the North Wall at Ballina,“ Surf Life Saving spokesman Stephen Leahy told AAP. „Shortly after eight o’clock one of the boys indicated that he was in trouble to his mate, his mate went over to help and found that he had been attacked. „He brought him up on to the shore, but unfortunately the boy died due to his injuries.“ Mr Leahy said all beaches in Ballina had been closed as a precaution. Another Surf Life Saving NSW spokesman, Craig Roberts, said the boy suffered two large bites, one to the leg and one to the body.

The shark had not been spotted since, and crews were out looking for it.

„The patient came in with another gentleman and lifeguards attended the scene,“ Mr Roberts told ABC radio. „As you can imagine it was quite a distressful situation. „He was unconscious and the lifeguards and ambulance officers had some severe haemorrhage to deal with.“ Mr Roberts said lifeguards performed well in the traumatic situation. „Certainly it’s one of those things that you’re trained for but hopefully it never happens as well,“ he said.“ The lifeguards did an excellent job and worked with the ambulance and the police service, but obviously it is a traumatic experience.“ The boy was surfing 50 metres out from shore at the time of the attack, he said. Reports that a second man was attacked but survived have not been confirmed. Mr Roberts said the beach was normally patrolled, but crews had not started patrolling for the day.

Surfers’ websites say North Wall beach, just north of the Richmond River estuary, is popular, but they warn of the danger from sharks. However Mr Roberts said it was not common for sharks to be present off North Wall beach at this time of year. „Earlier on in the year there was a very heightened risk in the Byron (Bay) area in which we put some additional measures with jet skis and helicopters in the area,“ he said. „But at this time of year it’s generally not a high prone (high prone) season for the sharks.“

Lifesavers will get a full report on the incident at 9.30am (AEST).

The manager of the Ballina Beach Resort, close to the site of the attack, said bull sharks had been seen recently in North Creek, near the Richmond River estuary. „A local fisherman saw four of five of them,“ the manager, Sharon, told AAP. „They are hunters,“ she said of the bull sharks.

The website marinebio.org says the bull shark is a massive and fearsome shark with saw-edged upper teeth, up to 3.5 metres long. The National Geographic website says attacks attributed to great white sharks may often in fact have been attacks by bull sharks. A spokesman for the Australian Volunteer Coastguard said it was the organisation’s policy to make no comment on any incidents in which it was involved.

Police said the boy who died was from Wollongbar, between Ballina and Lismore.

His mate had raised the alarm after finding him floating unconscious in the water, they said in a statement. He was pulled from the surf suffering heavy blood loss from severe lacerations to his upper and lower leg. Police and NSW Ambulance personnel attended the scene, but attempts to revive the boy were unsuccessful. His body was taken by ambulance to Ballina Hospital. Police said they would be preparing a report for the state coroner.

This was the second shark attack on a surfer in the Ballina area in the past 15 months.

A 26-year-old man was attacked in February last year. Matthew McIntosh, 26, underwent surgery after a shark bit his lower left leg and foot while he was paddling his boogie board off Shelly Beach. „He was catching a wave when the shark bit him … he didn’t see the shark at all,“ Westpac Rescue Helicopter pilot David Milnes said at the time.

Source: SMH

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Photostory – Schnorcheln auf Fiji

Fijis Unterwasserwelt ist ein traumhaft buntes Gemisch aus Korallen, Fischen und anderen Meeresbewohnern. Bei 28 Grad Wassertemperatur kann man problemlos stundenlang am Riff entlangtauchen. Außer man wird von einem freundlichen Suckerfish (siehe letzten zwei Bilder) verfolgt. Wir hatten keine Ahnung was für eine Art Fisch er ist, als wir ihn das erste Mal erspähten. Aufgrund seiner haiähnlichen Körperform und aufdringlichen Verhaltensweise – er hat sich im Abstand von wenigen Zentimetern an unsere Beine oder Bauch geheftet -  wurde uns ein bißchen unwohl und wir haben in einem etwas schnelleren Paddeltempo als gewohnt das Wasser verlassen, den Suckerfish im Schlepptau. Erst im knietiefen Wasser hat er sich verzupft. Die hiesigen Angestellten haben uns aufgeklärt, dass er völlig harmlos ist. Der Suckerfish, genannt „Ray“, denkt wir wären große Fische und folgt uns in der Hoffnung, dass er mit unserer Hilfe ein paar Fische abstauben kann.

 

Surf South Africa – The Pushup Coast

Source: www.coastalwatch.com
Text: Tim Fisher
Photos: Oakley

They’re big blokes, all four of them, standing around the barbie, beers in hand. Listening.The fifth bloke, the biggest of the lot, like Willy Mason big, a comp-surfer turned deep-sea fisherman named Robert Pollock, is getting to the end of his shark story. It’s the one where a White Pointer gets between him and the beach in chest-deep water, and charges. The big blokes sip their beers. No-one tries to crack a joke, no-one even swears. And no-one doubts the story for a second. There are some stereotypes you can take to the bank. That a surfer wearing a scarf will be from Bondi, that deep-sea fishermen are among the hardest bastards you’ll ever meet, and that South Africa is chock full of big sharks.

Outside around the fire, Tom Whitaker, Adam Melling, Brent Dorrington, Greg Emslie, Davey Weare and Royden Bryson do their best to ignore big Rob and his spellbound audience. It’s the last night of the trip, and they’ve had a gutful of shark stories.

>> Read the whole story on Coastalwatch.com

For this story and more checkout issue 235 of Australia’s Surfing Life

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Surf Pacific Islands – Without a trace

 

Source: www.coastalwatch.com
Text: Reggae Ellis
Photos: Dave Sparkes

The first time I had a chance to go to the Mentawais was way back in 1992, the trip Tom Carroll, Ross Clarke-Jones and some mutual friends did on the Indies Trader before it was a charter boat and when only a handful of people knew about the waves up there. The crew on that original trip were the only surfers in the Mentawais at the time, experiencing a sense of isolation and adventure that few surfers will ever share, surfing perfect waves, never knowing what lay around the next corner.

For reasons I can no longer remember, I didn’t make it on to that trip and I didn’t make it up there until 1997. By that stage the surf charter business was growing quickly and the days of scoring waves with only your fellow boat passengers were gone with usually another one, maybe two boats anchored off the best breaks. Of course, things have changed dramatically over the past decade, with the once-secret islands being the most photographed and filmed surf studio in the world. The result is land camps, dozens of boats and 40 surfers out at some of the breaks. For the Mentawais, the days of being Mysto Indo are long gone.

Fortunately the world is a big place and there are still plenty of virgin and uncrowded waves to be surfed. When I heard that the original Indies Trader was again on a voyage of discovery, this time searching for waves within a group of 100 islands in the Pacific, I wasn’t going to repeat my mistake of 1992. The surf potential of the islands is vast, and little is known. Distance and a history of military no-go areas in the islands has restricted any surf exploration over the past 50 years so it means the opportunity to surf new waves in pristine tropical waters with absolutely no other surfers other than those you are with still exists. I wasn’t going to let it pass. It is the surfing dream.
>> Read the whole story on Coastalwatch.com

From issue 286 of Surfing World

Surf Nias – Nias Rediscovered

Source: www.coastalwatch.com
Text: Brad Whittaker
Photos: Matt Johnson and Noah Hamilton

The waves of Nias, first discovered by Peter Troy, Kevin Lovett and John Geisel have been credited for opening the door to what may have become one of the most photographed and videoed island chains on the planet, that being the Mentawai, Telo, Simelue and Hinako’s. Nowadays for some, the perfection surrounding the waves of Nias has been shrouded in mystery and tainted by the 2005 and subsequent earthquakes and Tsumani. But is this the actual reality? and have those events, coupled with the explosion of the surf charter and tourism caused Nias and her surrounding islands to lose their shine? Well that all depends on your perspective of surfing. An eclectic group of surfers were sent on a surfing holiday with a difference… The surfers would rediscover the waves of Nias and just as the early surfing adventures did before luxury surf holiday travel, they would reconnect with the local communities. The full version of that introduction will be played out in a film currently in production. In the mean time lets unpack the purpose activities the team focussed on as well as the key surfing locations of Nias and the nearby Hinako Islands.
>> Read the whole story on Coastalwatch.com

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New surf movie – Sliding Liberia

Surfer sind keine Nichtsnutze, die nur an die nächste Welle denken, am Strand abhängen und nichts tun. Ganz im Gegensatz. Viele Surfer heutzutage haben Organisationen gegründet, die sich den Schutz unserer Ozeane und der Natur zum Ziel gesetzt haben. Branchenriesen wie Billabong versuchen ihre Produkte umweltfreundlicher herzustellen.

Auch einzelne Surfer verbessern das Surferimage. Dan Malloy produzierte 2007 einen Film, in dem es nicht nur ums Surfen geht, sondern um die Darstellung einer fremden Kultur: „Sliding Liberia“. Dan war im vergangenen Sommer mit einigen Kollegen in Liberia und stellt in professioneller dokumentarischer Manier die Situation der Menschen in dem westafrikanischen Staat dar, untermalt von Surfbildern von leeren Pointbreaks, die er sich mit seinen Freunden und einem afrikanischen Bodyboarder teilt. Ich habe “Sliding Liberia“ im Open-Air Kino von Bondi am 14. März gesehen und kann den Film nur weiterempfehlen. Dan Malloy hielt vor der Premiere in seiner bescheidenen Art eine kurze Ansprache über die Situation und seine persönliche Erfahrung in Liberia. Dan hatte folgendes über den Film zu sagen:

„Last summer I had a very rare travel opportunity. My cousin Britton has been attending Stanford studying film. There he became good friends with a guy named Nicholia Lidow, a political science major who has focused his studies on the development of nations that are currently experiencing civil war or just very recently experienced a civil war. What that means, in short, is that Nicholia has been spending all of his free time in Liberia. Although Nicholia is very serious about his major and is actively working and studying at all times, he also happens to be a good surfer, and Liberia also happens to have amazing surf. Very few people have ever surfed the Liberian coastline. With development in Liberia halted by the vicious rule of Charles Taylor, the country has been in the midst of a gruesome civil war for the last 20 years. Under intense pressure on all fronts, Charles Taylor finally resigned. Upon his resignation, the United Nations agreed to occupy Liberia with a plan to reestablish peace. The Liberian people elected Ellen Johnson Sirleaf as their new leader and the U.N. quickly began purchasing guns from Liberian citizens to get them off the street. Peace came almost overnight. The bombs stopped, the gunshots stopped, the fear of war was finally behind them. The war is over, but Liberia remains one of the poorest nations on the planet. Getting killed is now a worry of the past. The struggle now for the Liberian people, with a completely obliterated system, is to stay alive. With the war over, Nicholia invited a few of us to experience Liberia with him and his local Liberian friends. He took us on a three week journey that I will never forget. When we arrived there was only one Liberian surfer named Alfred. Now it looks like there are three.“
(source: www.cleanestline.com)

Hier ist der Trailer zum Film:

Die offiizielle Homepage: Sliding Liberia

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Photostory – Schnorcheln und Tauchen in Bondi Beach

Text und Photos: Robert Homberger
Kamera: Olympus 790 SW (wasserfest)

Bondi Beach ist nicht nur fürs Surfen geeignet. An Tagen mit wenig Wellengang und schwachen Winden sollte man sich Schnorchel und Taucherbrille schnappen und in North Bondi abtauchen. Die Häuser sind in North Bondi direkt am Wasser gebaut und davor liegt ein Riff, das sich knapp 50m vom Strand entfernt bis zum Ben Buckler Felsen an den Häusern entlangwindet.

Anstatt vom Strand aus loszuschnorcheln könnt ihr auch zum Ben Buckler Felsen laufen und von dort in den blauen Pazifik eintauchen.

Ich kann es nicht glauben, dass es drei Jahre gedauert hat bis ich endlich mal in Bondi zum Schnorcheln gegangen bin. Soviel zum Surf-Fanatismus. An diesem Tag hat es wirklich fast keine Welle in Bondi und Umgebung gehabt, woraufhin meine surfwütige Kollegin Julia und ich unsere Surfbretter gegen Taucherbrillen eingetauscht haben. Falls ihr zu den verfrorenen Kandidaten zählt, solltet ihr am besten ein dünnes Neoprenoberteil anziehen, damit euch nicht zu kalt wird. Wärmer als 22 Grad ist das Wasser selten im Sommer.

Am Riff tummelten sich zahllose kleine, bunte Fischschwärme . . .

. . . wie auch einige ellenlange Fische. Ich kenne mich leider mit Fischen überhaupt nicht aus. Falls jemand weiß, wie diese Fische heißen, schreibt mir doch bitte einen Kommentar.

Die Wasserfarbe wechselte von dunkelblau bis zu hellstem Grün. Nein, ich habe nicht mit den Farben in Photoshop rumgespielt.

Neben Fischen findet man auch ab und zu ein paar blonde Meerjungfrauen in North Bondi.

Falls ihr in Bondi tauchen wollt, solltet ihr auf folgenden Link klicken: Dive Centre Bondi

Angeblich treibt ein freundlicher Blue Groper, namens Bluey, sein Unwesen in North Bondi, der sich immer wieder über neue Gesichter und ‘ne kleine Verköstigung freut.

Alle Bilder wurden mit der wasserfesten Olympus 790 SW (7.1 MP) geschossen. Ich kann die Kamera für Unterwasserschnappschüsse nur empfehlen.

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