Just because you don’t see them doesn’t mean they’re not there. And that’s not a scary thing. Photo: Marco Fraschetti
Isn’t it strange to act like bait fish, bunching up, feeling fear and acting as one? I witnessed this the other day. An understated, unconscious feeling of possibly being prey for a very large creature.
It was on a sandbar on a subtropical headland that the peace was broken by a bloke paddling into the lineup. “Hey everybody,” he said. “They’ve just seen an eight foot shark about 150 feet over there,” he continued, pointing. “Just wanted let everybody know.” We all looked a little nervous. Then a set came, and we forgot (for a moment) what he said.
But I didn’t forget – it made me think. Not just about the shark, but the way he told us about it. There was a real sense of camaraderie in that moment.
To put this moment in context, I was near a town that had just suffered a fatal shark attack only three weeks earlier. As expected, the line up cleared out. Being from south Australia, we hadn’t suffered from overcrowding because of the rumors (which were true) that our were waters were inundated with big sharks. I have seen big bad boys in the water many times, and I have surfed with sharks before, but they’re not something you see all the time. Every single day we surf, we share the oceans with them, whether we know it or not. They are all around us. I dare say if one ever tangles with you, you won’t see it coming, because they would not want you to.
So, after pondering all this and turning around and paddling for a wave, I noticed that many people obviously hadn’t had the same musings. The beach was lined with holiday beach goers and three quarters of the surfers that were out in the water only moments before, all standing on their tippy toes, pointing out to sea over our heads like a scene from Jaws. All of a sudden, it became something that it needn’t be. A sense of drama had descended on the beach, like a blanket of dreadful voyeurism.
I got a wave in front of the crowd, and I had a horrible little spill. I probably shouldn’t have been out there in the first place, as I was nursing a very crook shoulder. I contemplated going in then and there, and I probably should have for my shoulder’s sake, but I didn’t. Because of those extras on the beach in our version of Jaws, I paddled back out.
I paddled back out because of some (possibly misguided) sense of wanting to put on an ethical display. In light of all the shark culling, cursing and killing that’s been going on in Australia lately, I wanted to show the people on the beach what I believed: this is the shark’s sea. They are always there, and we have always taken these risks, which are incredibly small, to share the place with them.
So back out I went to the main pack of people that were still in the water. They seemed to be a little more bunched up than they were before, and it reminded me of the way a school of fish bunches together when the big ones are around. As I was pondering what I would do if I actually saw the eight-foot beast (which isn’t that big, really), I felt a tug on my leg rope and my body jerked. Then I heard a squeaky voice behind me.
“Sorry,” the voice said. “You nearly shat yourself!” I sighed out the words “you little shit” with some relief. The grommet then told me in how he wasn’t scared, and the shark was gone by now, and it wouldn’t come here anyway, and it was probably in the channel and what is all the fuss about, at least it keeps the people out of the water… he sounded nervous. Slowly, the human bait ball dispersed along the sand bar and everybody went back to their regular, selfish business.
Afterwards, I realized something. The scene on the beach, that dreadful voyeurism I spoke of, was much more frightening than the scene in the water.
