Surfing Waves

Alright, so everything went great with my new board, it was darn hard but all worth it for those 2 perfect waves. Thats right , just 2 for today, the rest was spent getting out past the break. But it was so worth it. So everything was going great and then i suddenly realised, Im in Cape Town. In Cape Town there are great white sharks . And im sorta scared now. Not scared enough to keep me out of the water, but id really like to know a couple things about the sharks just so im aware, I couldnt find the answer to these anywhere else, so im hoping somebody on here has some experience or knowledge with great whites. So here are the questions:
1. Will they come into water that it only chest-just under head high?

2. What should you do if you see a shark very close to you, far away, or attacking another person?

3. What should you do if a shark attacks you, and you are in the water alone?

4. is there some sort of time of the day that is a better time to surf in, at a point when its less likely to be sharks?


Im not too worried, because the beach I go to has a shark spotters programme, check it out here : http://sharkspotters.org.za/ if you want .
But most of the time they have the black flag up, which means that they cant really see, so that sorta scares me.

This is in no way discouraging me, I would just feel a little safer in the water if i knew those things.

PS. i am trying to get some friends or family to come with me in the water, which would also help, but none of my friends are as close the beach as me, and only go like 1nce every 2 weeks so thats not enough, and my parents are often very busy. And just drop me off at the beach and then sit in the car and do work. They obviously do check up on me, but just from the car, so its not like they could help if i was attacked. Thanks for any help, please dont post something if your not absolutely sure its a fact. Shot oaks..

1. Will they come into water that it only chest-just under head high?

Yes. Sharks eat fish and most school fish live close to the shore (where there are smaller fish or whatever). But in general sharks dont hang around in close. There have been attacks in knee high water (usually bull sharks rather than great whites)

2. What should you do if you see a shark very close to you, far away, or attacking another person?

far away - leave the water

close - pray? At least, pull your legs out of the water if you can and dont act like a seal.

attacking - there are lots of stories of people fighting off sharks and not many of sharks attacking 2 people at once. Sharks are predators, they attack suddenly; they dont stick around if their prey fights back (usually). But most attacks are very very short; probably your only role will be to assist the injured person.

3. What should you do if a shark attacks you, and you are in the water alone?

Fight. Punch, kick, whatever you can. But you may not get much if any warning.

4. is there some sort of time of the day that is a better time to surf in, at a point when its less likely to be sharks?

Sunrise and Sunset are the worst time for shark attacks. When light is low. This is probably the most important safety message - dont surf at sunrise and sunset. Wait until there is a bit of light around/leave the water when it starts getting gloomy.

A couple of other tips.
Surf with a crowd, assess risk and divide by the number in the water.
Don't surf if you are bleeding or menstruating.
Do surf near known seal areas. Surfers look like slow awkward seals
Try not to surf in murky or rivermouth areas after a flood or big downpour, sharks are usually scouring for what has washed out of the river.
If a surfspot spooks you don't go out, the least that will happen is you won't enjoy yourself as you will be surfing scared.
Even in South Africa it is still more likely you can be injured or killed in a car to or from the beach.
Currently Western Australia is winning the shark stuff.

What you can do, get to be a strong swimmer, learn your local beach and its rips and breaking habits, learn how to do all the skills for being in the water.
When you think about how many people surf you realise how uncommon a shark attack is.

If you are surfing near Cape Town where there are shark spotters, then I guess you're surfing around Muizenberg? If so, then the usual large number of people in the water will lower your risk of being attacked.

What the others say is true, although I think Jaffa meant to say don't surf near a seal colony, although there are plenty of seals and sharks around False bay.

If you do see a shark, get out of the water but try not to resort to frenzied crazy paddling, rather just get the the shore quickly and as calmly as possible.

At the end of the day, there's not much you can do other than be sensible. A shark is way faster, stronger and more manouevrable in the water, but don't let that worry you. It's incredibly unlikely that anything will happen.

Kiff bru. Shot!

Thanks so much for all your help. This made me feel a little better. Going surfing again today , even though the conditions are pretty crappy. One last question, does it hurt? This question is mainly for someone who has experienced this, but if you have any knowledge about it that would be appreciated too. Ive heard on other websites that you can be so shocked you dont really feel anything , but is this true? Is it different on different parts of your body? Or is it different for different people?

[surfthosewaves] wrote:One last question, does it hurt? This question is mainly for someone who has experienced this

I'm not aware of anyone on here who's had more than a scare from the man in the grey suit, but here's Glen Orgias talking about the attack at Bondi in 2009.

Note - the guy lost his arm in the attack. The video doesn't show anything gruesome, but if you're worried about sharks, you might not want to want to watch!

Wait! There's sharks out there where I surf?

Whooo! Even the thought of it creeps me out, thankfully I live in Scotland though. . I'll take the cold anyday of the week!!

If you see a great white then it wont be hunting so you will be reasonably safe.

If it is any consolation, when a shark chooses to attack you, it will launch itself at you by swimming up from the deep really fast. The resulting impact will do most of the damage, and may even launch you partially out of the water. You will get no warning at all.

On the bright side don't the popular beaches have shark nets preventing them from coming close to the shore? (Which is actually quite bad for great whites and has caused their numbers to decline)

Just so you know Rickyroughneck , in Australia the nets are set a little differently to that.
The beach is not sealed off by a a net the nets are set to stop sharks swimming territorially.
Sharks can still swim right to shore at any beach, and often do.
The video posted is about Bondi( Australia's most famous beach) and it is always netted!

BTW the netting is harming quite a lot of larger sealife from whales down.
Picture local beach 100metres from shore

Here's my rather late two cents on this - I'm English so a bit obsessed, plus I used to be a journalist so covered a lot of stories etc on this.

First off the sunrise/sunset thing is a myth, if you look at actual shark attack stats, most people get munched - when? 3pm, why? Cos there's more of them in the water, so don't let it affect the time you go out.

http://sharkattackfile.info/time_of_day ... ttacks.asp

As for the menstruating thing - the jury's still out but if you're a dude you don't have to worry - if your girl pal is in a shitty mood for no reason though, maybe don't paddle to close to her

I've interviewed a few shark attack victims for work and all of them say similar things - they thought they'd been hit by a boat and only realised it was a shark when they saw it hang off them. Bethany Hamilton didn't even see the shark that took her arm!

Also understanding where that fear comes from is pretty interesting. We don't feel terrified every time we get in a car even though the likelyhood of death is much, much higher.
I spoke to a psychologist about this and he said a lot of these fears come from deep seated evolutionary programming- we're not terrified of cars because they've only been around for hundred years or so, whereas - things that eat you have been around since we first climbed up out of the swamp so these irrational fears have evolved as part of our survival instinct. Now maybe that's a load of nonsense but it's interesting nevertheless.

So the upshot is keep surfing - if a shark wants to eat you, you probably won't even see it coming and will feel very little. Or at least that's what I tell myself

I'm not sure what the code is in your part of the world, but we don't talk about them much in So Cal. And for sure we never mention them while in the water. The problem isn't too bad here, but northern California certainly gets their share of grey suit. That being said, I think there is an irrational fear, even though the odds go up for us a bit as surfers because we spend so much time in the water.

Thanks, Nicky for that insight.

Bali Surf wrote: And for sure we never mention them while in the water.

A friend of mine gets spooked in the water a lot - small fish, seagulls taking off, helicopters hovering overhead, almost anything in fact - and is sure it means there's a shark down there. She then mentions that she thinks there "might" be a shark and its fun to watch the sense of being spooked spread throughout the line-up for no good reason whatsoever...

drowningbitbybit wrote:

Bali Surf wrote: And for sure we never mention them while in the water.

A friend of mine gets spooked in the water a lot - small fish, seagulls taking off, helicopters hovering overhead, almost anything in fact - and is sure it means there's a shark down there. She then mentions that she thinks there "might" be a shark and its fun to watch the sense of being spooked spread throughout the line-up for no good reason whatsoever...

What about dolphins?

Actually, on the weekend a seal gave me a bit of a palpitation - I dont usually see them and it was much darker than a dolphin, a large shadow zagging underneath my board.

The other thing I hate is bait fish suddenly starting to jump out of the water- have been right in the middle of a couple of schools of fish doing that. Naturally I start wondering what is causing them to be scared...especially as I often surf at a beach where I have caught sharks while fishing. Not types known to attack humans (just school sharks - usually they are only about 1m long) but, still.

Hey Surfthosewaves, i am in Cape Town as well, however surf the Westcoast (Big Bay etc).I don't think about whats out there in the sea...just yesterday i was paddling for a wave when a friggin seal leaped over the front end of my board - so dtc i know what you on about (damn thing was riding the wave in and i didn't see it as i was looking out for other surfers in my path etc),

did it freak me out...a little, but it is awesome when you see a chap up and riding and a seal or two riding the same wave with him! (water was rather clean yesterday) -

Make friends with the others in the line up. That way you can paddle over to them to say "hi" and surf the peak with them.

dtc wrote:What about dolphins?

Ooh, I've done the wetsuit-wetting thing with dolphins once or twice

On one occasion I actually leapt out of the water onto the beach sure it was behind me... and was apparently going to chase me onto the sand
Little bugger cruised with his little fin above the water jaws stylee... dolphins are supposed to bob, not cruise!!