Surfers have a curious relationship with sharks, both indifferent and deeply suspicious. On the one hand, most will gruffly dismiss the risks. On the other, they’ll resort to mumbled euphemisms to avoid any direct reference to the sum of all fears.
During the official webcast of the Jeffreys Bay semi-finals featuring Mick Fanning on Sunday night, coverage crossed to the World Surf League’s water man, renowned big-wave surfer Pete Mel. For those unfamiliar with the format, Big Pete offers commentary on the water conditions whilst perched backwards on a jetski in the channel beside the breaking waves.
Mel was talking about the exceptional standard of water safety at J-Bay. As a high-powered Zodiac cruised behind him, Mel explained that the precautions were necessary because J-Bay is “very near the Cape, fully exposed to the Indian Ocean and there’s a lot of… er, sea life.” He used the term several times more, as if to emphasise that he was not going to resort to that word. The one that no-one dares speak.
It was hard to suppress a groan. Really? A shark appearing in the middle of a professional surfing contest? Live on the webcast? And then, in the final, the unthinkable (which, it emerges, had been carefully thought about) occurred.
Afterwards, during a stunned post-event panel discussion on the WSL’s web feed, the comperes asked WSL event commissioner Kieren Perrow (himself a prominent former pro surfer), if he had ever seen something like this in the history of pro surfing. Behind him, live footage showed perfect surf rolling through Supertubes, and one lonely fatalist waiting for waves in what is normally one of the most crowded lineups on earth. A drone hovered over the diehard in the hope of a terrifying postscript to the day’s drama. Perrow dwelt on the question a little longer before answering firmly. “No.”
What happened at J-Bay, and what happens next, is without precedent. We went as close as we ever will to watching a professional athlete being mauled by a shark live on the internet. As it stands, this is the most clearly documented and widely viewed shark encounter in history.
I’m using that term carefully – this was an encounter, not an attack, although “attack” is the term that will be used whenever this incident is mentioned in the media. It’s not at all clear that the shark was trying to bite Fanning, and it’s quite likely that its investigatory lunge turned into panic for both parties when it got a mouthful of legrope.
But that’s not to understate the gravity of what occurred. Much credit should go to the event organisers, who have been aware of the shark risk at Jeffreys for many years and have handled it responsibly. The “shark rule” was deployed, the water safety teams responded quickly, and it’s possible a tragedy was averted.
Now the questions arise.
As well as all the usual ones about what this means for human/shark relations, how does this incident affect future of the J-Bay Open, one of the most prestigious events in world surfing? We’ll find out over coming weeks, but it seems likely the event will survive both as a local championship and as a sanctioned world tour event.
Why? Because of what would be lost: this is arguably the longest, fastest right hand point wave on the planet, and competing here is seen as a rare privilege. The only comparable contest in South Africa is the Ballito Pro (formerly the Gunston 500) at Durban, which is the world’s longest-running surf contest and yet is held in notoriously sharky waters. If the Gunston’s survived a bad reputation, J-Bay will too. Or, to put that another way, if Jeffreys falls because of this, then eyes will turn to other tour events on coasts with a history of shark encounters. For us in Australia, that means Margaret River, and no-one’s going to let that happen.
But there’s a simpler, more logical reason why J-Bay should stand: the very fact that this is unprecedented shows you that it is a freakishly uncommon occurrence. Yes, there have been previous scares at Jeffreys – most notably Taj Burrow in 2003 and Mick Lowe in 2007, and there was a fatality there as recently as 2013. But the fact remains that competitors are far more likely to be killed or maimed surfing the Pipeline or Teahupo’o events, where a high-energy collision with a reef is an accepted risk: and no-one is advocating their cancellation.
The next question is, how will this affect Fanning? Barely at all. Fanning is known for his incredible mental strength. He’s a three-time world champion who’s been through the death of his brother and a horrendous hamstring injury that would’ve ended the careers of most athletes. Any form of adversity just seems to make him more determined. Expect him to take time out to process the madness surrounding this incident, and he’ll be back and even hungrier in Tahiti.
How does last night’s premature finish to the contest affect the world title race? This is a curly one: both Fanning and his opponent in the final, Julian Wilson, were awarded equal second-place points (8,000 each), after a quick meeting with contest directors. Given that two of current leader Adriano de Souza’s title rivals were given a points boost, rather than just one, in what is a tight race for the world crown this year the shark could yet have quite a bit to answer for.
