Looks like a bull shark or two are cruising up and down the coast, taking chunks out of people. A few days ago, a shark took a bite out of someone’s arm a little south of here. Yesterday, at Redhead beach (a spit from here) a bull shark rose from the deep and gnawed deep into a surfer’s thigh and torso. It also munched on his surfboard for a bit of desert. Bleeding heavily, the surfie called for help and a mate came to his aid (that takes guts) and helped him to shore. Grey from loss of blood, he was rushed to hospital and is now stable. But that raises a question: do I go to the beach today, especially since the weather is glorious? Yesterday the beaches were closed, but today they are open again, despite a few extra shark sightings. Is the same shark meandering about, has it called on its mates to join in, or are my chances of becoming shark bait the same as ever?
Probably not a bad idea to ask what surfies think?
Those that surf need to respect the reality that it is their landscape, it is their environment and we are mere custodians of their water and their living. So if we do get eaten or we do get bitten we can’t cry foul.
Update: exponential growth in shark numbers, especially white-pointers, along my beaches. Says the local aerial shark spotter:
Now it’s becoming exponential and I think the ones that have been bred have been breeding and they’ve been breeding. So we’re getting a lot more of them that’s the case.
20 January, 2012 at 6:48 am
It may be -40 here, but at least there’s no sharks.
OTOH, sharks may be preferable.
20 January, 2012 at 8:39 am
I did actually go for a swim yesterday, given that the weather was so beautiful – 31 degrees. All my limbs are still attached.
20 January, 2012 at 2:55 pm
I apologize in advance for trotting out a tired set of tropes and stereotypes, but I really don’t understand how one even manages anything at all on that continent. Some of the most aggressive venomous spiders (among 135 known species) and snakes (the only continent where the venomous outnumber the non-venomous) on land, and the near-constant threat of being eaten alive while in the water, if the fingernail-sized jellyfish that are said to cause the most excruciatingly painful injury known to humankind don’t get to you first. I imagine you likely hear it all the time from Americans and Euros and Asians (and maybe even the odd Sub-Saharan African who’s exposed to comparably tamer fauna), but every last one of you must have some serious sack just to step outside your homes on a regular basis – forget about taking a swim.
20 January, 2012 at 5:51 pm
Actually, we have the 9 most venomous snakes in the world. Brown snakes are plentiful around here. But, well, we do play it all up a bit for visitors. I warn them to watch for grass longer than 2 cms long, etc. But then, seriously, only a few people die each year from sharks, pretty much zero from snakes and spiders and stuff. You grow up with it all; life ain’t the same without it.
21 January, 2012 at 9:32 am
You’re no safer in the house, are you? May as well go out….
21 January, 2012 at 12:19 pm
And thankfully the spiders have come back inside. When we first moved in, they died immediately, since the real estate agent had obviously sprayed some toxic crap around. Spiders inside is a great sign: they eat flies and mossies etc. If you leave out a saucer of water, some may come and have a sip. If it’s healthy enough for spiders to live, then so also for humans. Gotta watch out in autumn though, since it’s funnel web mating season – http://stalinsmoustache.wordpress.com/2009/04/07/funnel-web-season/. They run around outside at night, so shoes are a good idea, and occasionally they will find a spot to rest inside aforesaid shoes. So you simply shake them out before putting them on. Apparently being bitten by a funnel web is like being smashed by a massive chunk of timber with a huge nail on the end.
21 January, 2012 at 12:49 pm
And your already alarming list does not mention the highly lethal crocs when you talk about being eaten alive in the water..
22 January, 2012 at 12:15 am
Oh yeah, they’re up north, although they have learned to eat only tourists. Very clever.
20 January, 2012 at 3:50 pm
Good to have found your blog, Roland… Am really enjoying reading it. I’m glad you braved the veritable zoo of deadly predators lurking outside and went for that swim. I am curious about the jellyfish, though…
20 January, 2012 at 5:52 pm
Every day is an encounter in the land of Oz. Jellyfish – that would be north of the banana curtain.
20 January, 2012 at 5:54 pm
Ah that Jess. You’d know exactly what I’m trying to do as a tourist adviser …
22 January, 2012 at 12:21 am
Robert, I suspect you mean the blue bottle or the Portuguese man o’war – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_Man_o%27_War. .They give you a decent sting when the tentacles wrap around you. Actually, there was a blue bottle warning on the beach today, but we usually ignore it. I didn’t meet any so the wind must have carried them somewhere else. We used to pop their floaters with our big toes when they washed up on the beach – as kids at least.
22 January, 2012 at 4:22 am
Comrades, may I contribute a news item of anti-imperialist import that also relates to the more than merely human others?
Pyongyang, January 19 (KCNA) — A natural wonder happened in Germany, too, when the whole world was in great sorrow over the demise of General Secretary Kim Jong Il.
At around 3:00 PM on Dec. 20, the day after the news of the passing of the leader was released, a grate titmouse settled before the entrance of the DPRK embassy in Germany and stayed there, pecking at the glass.
There were visits of an endless crowd of people to the mourning place, but the bird was staring at it for an hour before flying away.
Meanwhile, a prunus mume around the embassy premise had been in full bloom in the whole mourning period despite chilly weather.
Witnesses said: It was a rare phenomenon which was not observed before. It seemed that upon hearing the sad news of the demise of the outstanding great man the bird flew to the mourning station to express condolences and flew away after standing vigil. The prunus mume came into bloom in such cold winter day in token of mourning his demise.
22 January, 2012 at 11:40 am
WTF has that got to do with sharks?
22 January, 2012 at 10:11 pm
The connection, as I made clear, is that all of these news reports fall under the category of the “more than merely human other”.
I am sorry if my story about a hyper-intelligent titmouse and compassionately unseasonable flowering shrub from a genuinely Proletarian source of reputable news and opinion is of less interest to your readers than a clipping from the lifestyle section of bourgeois provincial state media.
I wish you militant Juche felicitations regardless.
23 January, 2012 at 11:04 am
It’d be more interesting if the titmouse ripped off someone’s leg …
25 January, 2012 at 10:48 pm
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