Seahound

Cactus in South Oz is well known for its world class waves with so many different quality reef breaks crammed into a small area. It also has a fearsome reputation as a popular hunting ground for every surfer’s worst nightmare. I remember the time back in August 1977. It was more than a week since I’d witnessed my good mate Phil ‘Sharky’ Horley get attacked by a huge and hungry white pointer at outside Castles. Fortunately the big fish went into a feeding frenzy with Phil’s surfboard which allowed him enough time to swim for his life like Michael Phelps to shore. Sharky (as he became known after the attack) received three hundred stitches or so on one of his legs and along his waist from when the mighty beast first launched its surprise attack underneath him and sent him flying into the air. Luckily it didn’t gash any main arteries. It had only nicked him with a few of its teeth. The shark hadn’t really bitten him at all. He was so lucky! Not many people survive a stealth attack from one of the world’s most efficient predators and live to tell the tale. Nonetheless, it was still enough of an injury to keep him in hospital and away from Cactus for a few months. The medical staff even made him read an illustrated book on shark attacks while they stitched him up in hospital, so as to get all the residual shock out of his system. The attack happened during the peak of the August school holidays. There’d been plenty of visitors around the place including my brother Sean and a few friends from West Oz. But the day after the attack the camping area was completely deserted. Only the permanent shack crew in the dunes remained. Nobody, except Dave Trengrove, went surfing for a week largely because the weather was still the same as the day Sharky got attacked – murky with grey clouds and a cross-shore Southerly breeze, very suspect. So there I was sitting on the cliff overlooking Castles a week or so after the attack enjoying the first blue-sky day in a long time, with the wind having finally turned offshore again. But I wasn’t ready to get back in the water just yet because, for the past week, there’d been a big fishing boat dropping nets and hooks just beyond the waves at outside Castles. These fishermen were of course trying to catch the shark. I looked across the bay over to Caves and could see about ten of the shack crew sitting in the lineup. It was everyone’s first surf since the attack. Who could blame them with such perfect waves going unridden on a blue-sky day? No matter about big whitey, when the surf was this good at Caves it’s just too hard to resist. Then I noticed two surfers paddling out to Castles in front of where I was sitting. Newcomers! They must have just arrived to the camping area and seen all the crew out at Caves, and decided to surf Castles because there was no-one out there. I suddenly got a bad feeling… Then I noticed all the lads at Caves coming in on the same wave, all of them lying down on their surfboards! They’d obviously seen a fin or something and got spooked. I started yelling loudly trying to warn the two newcomers paddling out to Castles in front of me but it was too late. They were too far out and couldn’t hear my frantic calls. A few minutes passed and everyone at Caves by now had made it to safety and was standing on the inside reef. The only people in the water now were the two newcomers in the middle of the bay at outside Castles. By this time I was actually praying for their safety. Then to my amazement I saw the fishing boat out the back slowly leaning over to one side. I watched in awe as the boat winched up a massive shark. They’d caught the feckin thing! It was hooked on the very last bait along the net. The two surfers paddling out were next in line. That afternoon we had a big party at Point Sinclair on the sheltered side of the headland to celebrate the catch. The fishermen cut the jaws out and opened them up as wide as they could to show us the size of the creature’s bite. Rodger the bar manager from the Penong pub had a big enough beer belly and the large triangular and serrated teeth never touched his sides as they slid the jaws over him. Then they matched up the jaws with the bite marks on Sharky’s surfboard which had washed up in several pieces at Long Beach a few days after the attack. They gave us the smallest tooth in the jaws to give to Sharky as a present which he took to wearing around his neck. The jaws they kept for themselves which were apparently worth a good sum of money. There was a lot of tequila and beer drunk that afternoon. Fifteen foot or so of headless shark was still in the water, tied up alongside the fishing boat, with blood and guts oozing out into the sea from where its angry face used to be. When all the lamb chops and sausages ran out Rick the Punk suddenly reckoned shark steak would be a good idea for an evening feed. The shark wanted to eat one of us so now we’d eat the shark. Brilliant! It was pure drunken madness. So there was Rick the Punk leading the charge with two other inebriated eejits, the three of them standing and swaying on top of a half submerged dead shark, hacking into it while trying to get a few big slabs of fish for the barby. For most observers it was a feckin hilarious scene. But as drunk and as stoned as I was, something about it just didn’t seem right. I was worried to be honest …watching and waiting for another big shark to come from underneath and start chewing into the lads standing on top of its mate. Then Smiley and Fitzy arrived at the party and caused a bit of a commotion. They had a big brown snake dangling dead from a tent pole they were carrying. They were calling out my name. I ventured over to see what the fuss was about. They’d called into my shack Orion on the way down and had knocked on the wooden door to see if I was coming to the party. But I was already at the party. They thought I might have been asleep so they opened the door to come in and wake me up. That’s when they saw the big brown snake climbing up onto my bed and into my sleeping bag. So they killed it. I would have stumbled home from the party that night and got into my sleeping bag and certain death. Fitzy and Smiley had saved my life. I thanked the lads profusely…and my guardian angels. Snakes and sharks aren’t nice creatures. Yes, they live there and have a role to play in the overall scheme of things. But give me a close encounter with a friendly dolphin or a harmless sleepy lizard any day! Keep surfing – Seahound.