South Australia: Andrew ‘Monkey’ McLeod 35, was out surfing about one mile (2km) off Elliston Bar around 9:30 this morning, when he was thrown in the air by a Great White shark. He was just about to catch a wave with his two mates when the attack occurred.
He told Adelaide Now ‘I just felt this massive force and heard this massive sound, I went flying and Ty thinks that the shark might have totally breached the surface because there was a huge splash. I After I climbed back on my board I saw its tail fin right next to me and it must have been five foot high. I’d say the shark was 15 foot long. I yelled out “it’s a pointer!”.
His friends Sam Jervis and Tyrone Swan waited for Monkey to paddle back to them, before they all paddled as a group back to shore. He added “I have to give a massive thanks to them for waiting for me and allowing us to bunch up before we paddled in.” The shark had damaged his board and leaving two big bite marks.”
Click to see all 2014 shark attack’s and bites
As his friends caught the next wave, he found himself alone he said “Because my board was stuffed I couldn’t catch that wave, but then I got one and rode it on my guts, Then it was a very fast paddle back to the shore, but I was totally rooted because I’d only just got out there.”
Once on shore his friends Mr Jervis said “That was my first encounter with a great white, and it certainly doesn’t make you feel like jumping straight back in the water. But it could have been a lot worse — we could have been paddling in without Monkey and had to tell his fiancee what had happened”
He added “Yeah, personally I get pretty tired of hearing hippies telling us that we shouldn’t kills sharks,”
“Well one just tried to kill my friend.”
Of course they Mr. Jervis was aware shark were in the area. As owner of two surf shops he said surfers and fishermen had recently seen a lot of sharks in the area.
Monkey was shaken by the incident, but when asked if he would stop surfing he said “Nah, I’ll be back out there for sure, but maybe not at that spot again.”
According to the Australian Shark Attack File since 1791 there have been 892 shark attacks in Australia, with 217 of those being fatal.
Comments are closed.