Mick Fanning’s Port Lincoln odyssey: Diving with shark expert Rodney Fox

Surfing champion Mick Fanning survived a close encounter with a shark. It didn’t drive him out of the water – he’s actually going back down for a closer look with the SA man who knows them best.

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Mick Fanning and Rodney Fox are two members of a small and elite club, but it’s not one most people would be in a hurry to join. The 38-year-old world champion surfer and 79-year-old filmmaker and conservationist have both survived encounters with the ocean’s apex predator – the great white shark.

Fox, who was bitten during a spearfishing contest off Aldinga in 1963, received horrific injuries and came close to death. Fanning, whose encounter occurred during the final of the 2015 J-Bay Pro surfing contest in South Africa, suffered psychological injuries but was physically unharmed.

Now both men have met for the first time in Port Lincoln to talk about the dramatic events that changed their lives and made them household names.

World champion surfer Mick Fanning and great white shark expert Rodney Fox. Picture: Rob Lang

Rodney Fox recovering from the attack which occurred in 1963.

Fanning was in the Eyre Peninsula city to film scenes for a new movie, set to air later this year on Foxtel National Geographic, called Save This Shark.
The documentary sees the three-time world champion diving with sharks around the world in an attempt to gain a better understanding of the creatures. The climax involves Fanning coming face-to-face with a great white for the first time since his dramatic encounter, and Port Lincoln was the logical place to make that happen.

“For me, this is a personal journey to find out if I’m totally healed or if I’m a bit spooked,” Fanning said before heading out on the Rodney Fox, the boat named in honour of his new mate.

“At the end of the day, I’m one of the fortunate ones – I just came away with a few emotional scars. I consider myself extremely lucky.”

For Fox, Save This Shark is another opportunity to drive home the message that great whites should be respected and protected.

“Hopefully this movie will summarise what I’ve been trying to say for the past 50 or 60 years,” Fox said.

“If you can educate people, show them the sharks, people are less afraid. When I was first bitten, there was a saying that the only good shark is a dead shark. People wanted to get rid of them all. I don’t think we have the right to kill off anything through fear, we have to learn to live with it.”

Mick Fanning, seconds before his interaction with a great white shark in South Africa.