It's the old question when carving up a chicken but for years I laboured under the delusion that dark skinned people had some kind of protection from being eaten by the man in the grey overcoat. The landlord. Johnnies. Whatever you want to call the creature . Think about it though. Up until two years ago I had never heard of a black guy getting attacked by a shark.
Now, in the last two years four attacks in the same place. One of them on the same guy (HOW unlucky is that? Poor bastard) who got bitten once and a year later absolutely chowed by a hungry Zambezi.
That's one thing you can say about Wild Coast shark attacks when they happen. Which, statistically, is scary, given how many people surf there. They tend to be rather serious. And not many people surf there due to the definite possibilty of being eaten and the more definite possibility of being robbed these days. Either when you're in the water as the Tsotsi's break into your car, or at gunpoint.
In the 80's Alex Macun was demolished in two bites at Ntlonyana in front of friends of mine who were close enough to the beastie to throw rocks at it. His board is on display at the Natal Shark's Board in Umhlanga Rocks. He was gone, not even a toenail left. Eaten. It wasn't actually his board, it was a friend's board he was on. Given the circumstances I believe she has forgiven the damage done. My mum was doing photography classes with the guy. He was chomped on a flat, two foot day, in knee deep water. To this day I don't think I want to surf that wave again.
The last three attacks were at 2nd beach where I surfed regularly when I lived in Port St Johns. It was the equivalent of Pipe in PE. Two were locals from the location up on the hill overlooking the waves (best views from any location in Africa). Learning to surf on boards donated by travelling surfers. Another was a lifesaver, also from the location. All they got of him was his swimfins. Zambezi shark again.
I remember two whitey surfers, Mark and Johnno' who lived there and ran a bar, (Tubes, excellent name) surfed a lot and refused to eat seafood of any kind.
'We don't eat them so they don't eat us.' Worked for them. God only knows where they are now. probably hit by a car or something. Hopefully still hanging out somewhere.
Johnno's girlfriend was a piece of work of NOTE. Pathological, lying bitch. Tried to stitch me up a few times for her own personal reasons (I was her supervisor) and nearly succeeded due to the old, 'Well, where there's smoke there's fire' adage. What he saw in her apart from the obvious I do not know. She got caught out with her lies when she claimed I had abused her verbally one day and I was 120 km's away at the time she alleged I called her a lazy, lying bitch and screamed at her for not doing her job. Which she was and she certainly didn't. But I never said it to her as she claimed. But that's another story all over again. I digress (sue me bitch!).
I also remember watching shark fishermen all being hooked up on monster hammerheads at The Gap (all five of them) as I was surfing in line with where they were trying to reel in these 14 foot beasties. Thinking, 'Ah, those are hammerheads, they don't bite.' And carrying on surfing.
I should have learned from the Johnno's squeeze incident. I got stitched up recently by another pathological lying bitch, except this time she got me. And that is also another story.
Will I stop surfing? Not a chance.
Trust women? Go figure. A post later on what ugly women (within and externally) in positions of self perceived power will do to people to further their own vaulting ambitions. Crabs in a bucket...
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