Hi all,

Just reading your posts and having a laugh. Thought I would put my 2 cents worth in mainly because while I do not kite, I windsurf, surf, dive and sail (and swim) in Adelaide and the decent surf beaches within 8 hrs of Adelaide. Added to that I am a marine biologist so I get in the water a bit, including around Lincoln.

My 2 cents (for what there worth) is that while surfing, sailing and windsurfing I find that as long as your having a good time you tend not to think about them. The facts are that if you surf you probably have had a shark swim around you more than once but you wont know it. As other people have said they are graceful and extremely agile for their size and if its going to attack you then you wont see it anyway. The added paranoia of looking for sharks and freaking out wont change anything and would have been the same for people 10, 20, 40 years ago... things havent really changed.

HOWEVER this does not mean you through caution by the wayside because common sense is the best thing to stop yourself being eaten. I would not go surfing within 1km of a seal colony, after a spearfishing contest, at a large river mouth (ie Murray). i wouldnt dive on a reef when the snapper are running, lots of people fishing/burlying etc. But that is common sense isnt it?

I have seen small sharks (~8ft-ish) while surfing but not whites, but the fact is whites are not responsible for the most attacks, I think its actually Bull sharks. But anyway if a white does get curious to see if your tasty it usually leaves a bloody big hole.

Earlier in the posts people were talking about Shark Shields, I work for the government and we have to wear them while diving (especially after Jarrod Stebhens was taken). They do not make your body twitch unless you are kneeling/touching the 'tail'. I have not personally seen them work (and would rather not) but I have been told by people especially in Lincoln that they wear them and they are confident that they work. I think that it gives you the added confidence to go on doing what your doing without the paranoia. There is debate about whether the electric field attracts sharks to the area but thgen repels them when they get close but I have not seen any evidence of either this happening or not, I think more research needs to be done.

The shark shields will not work for kiters because they need to be totally immersed in water for them to work.

For the record I dont know if there are more sharks now or just more ways of seeing them (planes, patrols etc). I think they have always been there. If you look at the stats they will say that there is about 1.5 fatal attacks per year in Australia. In the last 12 months there has been two, so that is no different.

That might have been more like 20 cents so sorry!

Hey Spacemonkey,

Sad to see those floods. Its been a tough time for farmers every where and to see them finally get rain so much it totally ruins their crops is quite sad.

Be careful of those bulls sniffin about. I hear they are one of the only sharkees to be able to live in fresh water also.

Maybe our new Marine biologist friend dralyagmus can shed more light on it?

There are a few species of shark that can live in fresher waters (there have been historical reports of sharks up to Renmark on the Murray) and bronzies are capable of surviving in estuarine conditions (estuaries are the interface between salt water and a fresh water input such as a river). Generally the salinity of the water doesnt reach that of freshwater due to the shear amount of salt water quickly brings the salinity up. These and hammerheads often hang around the river mouths scavenging tasty bits that flow out of the river. This is especially evident at the Murray mouth where you can almost count them.

The Torrens outlet is a classic example of this. I persoanlly have sailed dinghies at henley and I would have to say that when its flowing I wouldnt be confident in the water around there. The more pressing issue around river mouths when they are flowing is the bacteria that flows from the urban and agricultural areas. The department of health and EPA generally say that you should swim (or surf/windsurf/kite etc) around discoloured water especially at rivermouths for about 3 days after rain. This is due to the risk of infection upset stomachs, ear infections... But having said that I have surfed at Barcoo while its heaving down and come out OK other than smelling like petrol.

I would think that kiting or windsurfing at somewhere like semaphore or north haven would be fine because there are no large stormwater drains near there. Further south you get large drains like barcoo, edwards st at brighton, a couple around seaford which could affect water quality. But really you are going to sail where its good...

No, they have heard about all the attention on the forum !

Spacemonkey be carefull mate! Now you have Bulls sharks aswell as big mumma Great Whites to look out for!

I wish you all the best in your kiting adventures. I would'nt kite in SA if you paid me. You are an amazingly ballsy kiter and all the power to you!

dada dada da da da da da da dadadahhhh!

it's hype i tells you,

plus if you adjust your riding you can lessen your chances dramatically. No hard tricks futher than 50m from shore, no riding more than 400m from shore, and do majority of tricks going in to shore. But this said plenty of people don't do this and no-ones seen a shark.

If you look on google earth you can see how shallow it is from our brand new breakwater. This makes me feel a whole lot safer. I seriously think WA is way sharkier than Adelaide. It's just the last 2 shark attacks and all the media hype trying to scare people. Before the first attack people used to say their wasnt even sharks in our gulf. Now one attack and their everywhere, at least the water is less crowded.

so are you saying if we dump plastic bags in the sea we kill sharks

Excellent [}:)]

Actually i hate polution i would never do that, not to mention we got no turtles

uber is it me or have you made about one quarter of the posts to this thread?

Laurie, the site seems to have lost many days of postings since the upgrade. Did you have it backed up? Also when you come it now the menu only lets you come in at page #7, while there are 10 pages. Apologies for raising it again if you were already onto it.
Graeme

Sharks
Ok kiddies here is story for you......I kiteboard, and where I kiteboard in summer is a river mouth on the east coast of Australia, now yesterday I went out, and to be honest had a crap kite, it was just too light, anyway I came in and packed up as it was getting late, And as happens it picked up and started blowing hard. Anyway id had enough and left. But some of my mates stayed out. Josh convinced Kynan to go across the bay to the other side which is maybe one k away, on his way out of the river mouth Josh spotted a fin, a big fin, we do get dolphins etc, but this fin didn't move like a dolphin, Josh didn't think too much of it until they hit a pocket with no wind, Kynan dropped his kite, and what made it worse was that he dropped it across a shark net. Josh was still powered so tried to go back and help but he also dropped his kite. So the boys are splashing about trying to un tangle the lines , and a paddle board guy comes over and asks if they are ok, they're like sure we are, time passes, they finally get the lines untangled, and Kynan swims in while Josh rolls up his lines and prepares to swim in, another paddle board guys comes out and tells Josh that he has to get on the paddle board now and get in right now, you see from shore they've noticed a big fin circling the boys and its starting to get closer and closer, so they get the gear onto the paddle board and make their way back in, as they are getting closer to shore they turn around and notice the Fin is following them and getting closer, the paddle boarder yells out to his mate SHARK, so his mate hops onto his board and paddles out through the waves and begins banging on it to try and attract the shark away from them. The boys make it back and the shark disappears. The guys in effect saved Josh, this shark had followed Josh and Kynan from the river mouth across the bay, it had the circled them and was looking like it was ready to attack when the paddler came out to help. We have had no fatal attacks in Noosa since the late 60s and no-one until yesterday had seen a shark while kitebaording. So what are we doing today...kite boarding at the river mouth, lets hope it takes another 30 plus years before we see another around here.

5mt Great White found at Bondi. Heres the Link

www.smh.com.au/national/bondi-monster-shark-spotted-20051208-gdml8m.html

Eyewitness accounts


December 7, 2005 - 4:21PM

We asked you to email your experiences of seeing the shark at Bondi. Here are some of the responses:

Anthony Collins: I was in the water when the siren went off. But I don't think a lot of the people knew what was going on. It was only when the jet skis came around that people realised something was up.
``There should be some very clear signal or voice system that makes you know its a shark alert - dare I suggest the Jaws theme?


Zoe Porter: I saw it from the cliffs at Tamarama, its fin was massive - too large to be a dolphins,'' wrote, in email. A group of paddlers on surf skis were heading straight for it without knowing. They must have been alerted by the lifeguard soon after because 10 minutes later I saw them paddling like mad back to shore in Bondi.


Karl Treacher: I paddle a Surfski from North Head to Bondi most days. Last Saturday (just gone) at around 8am we saw what looked to be a plank of wood bobbing on the surface (about 2-3 foot long). As I paddled closer, I realised that I was looking at the dorsal fin of a huge shark. It was just cruising very slowly. Behaviour unlike that of other sharks I have seen. It was moving with the westerly current and looked like it was coming from around the Watson's Bay area.

Julian Turner: I'm a backpacker from the UK, I've been all around the world and been in some scary situations, but nothing comes as close to this incident last night! I was smimming in the sea and in the distance I see this object cruising through the water. I wasn't sure what it was, then I heard people screaming and realised it was a shark! I couldn't even have a shower this morning as my body was still pumped full of adrenalin! You should have warnings about these things on the beaches, if this was the UK, I'd sue the council!

Ben Howarth: I was surfing late yesterday afternoon at around 8.30 out at Bronte just on dusk. There was not much surf and I was considering coming in anyway. Just as I started to paddle in something struck me from the water and knocked me off my board. I quickly got back on my board in shock and paddled back in. I didnt know that there was sitting of Bondi of a 14 footer! I think I will give the surf a miss this arvo.


Lance Sacks: I was jogging in the area when I saw the 'monster' - it was terrifying, a real rollercoaster of emotions - fear, anxiety and panic. I thought the sharks back home in Cape Town were big - 'you call that a shark, now that's a shark!'

Bugger! It wasnt a shark at Bondi it was the oversized Lemon Sole fish. Hard to find a BBQ big enough to cook him up.

It was sticking is dorsal fin out of the water.
They eat Jellyfish not humans

SUNFISH
7news.com.au:443/ click on Frightening fish a gentle giant (7news)
www.amonline.net.au/fishes/fishfacts/fish/mola.htm

Seriously now, how long are these shark stories going to go on for?
Sure, everyone with at least half a normal brain gets paranoid and thinks nasty thoughts when they are in the water from time to time but this thread is seriously getting way out of hand.

We all know sharks live in salt water and they are often seen by humans who choose to share the water with all the other sea dwelling creatures but do you really have to spend so much time thinking about it. If I thought about it as much as Uber I would not go within 5 metres of the waters edge for fear of being picked off by a killer whale who had mistaken me for a seal.

I have read a few articles which clearly stated that sharks sense fear and as such people like Uber are attracting sharks to their own vicinity whenever they are in the water. So please.... stop thinking about it, stop talking about and enjoy your time in the water or perhaps move inland and only kite in fresh water dams, or are you compulsively petrified by yabbies as well.

Please never kite near me Uber... your fear makes you a human shark magnet.

Actually I think this thread is for anyone who wants to have a heightened sense of awareness about what's swimming around underneath them. I'm always so happy when I finally get out of the water and haven't lost a limb. A pessimist is always happy :p
Graeme

But lets turn this threat to killer whales. Has any human ever been killed intentionally by a killer whale in the open sea?

Ha ha! Just found this

www.seabreeze.com.au/gallery/gallery.asp?imageid=769