Four mates encounter suspected five-metre long great white shark on Sydney’s northern beaches
Video: Four mates have retold their terrifying experience of encountering what they believe was a five-metre long great white feasting on a seal while they were surfing off a Sydney Beach.
Manly
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FOUR men have described the “straight out of National Geographic” experience of seeing what they believed to be a 5m great white shark breach the water and attack a seal just 20m from them.
Peter James, Matt Davies, Stephen Lowes and Ivo Rosbach were surfing Queenscliff bombora in the big seas, about 700m offshore from North Steyne on Saturday.
About 10.30am they were waiting for the next wave, when Mr Rosbach, 43, of Manly, noticed movement nearby.
“I saw something on the surface, I thought it was a fin,” he said.
Mr Davies, 42, of Manly, made a tongue-in-cheek comment about the possibility of a shark being close by.
“I said, ‘Nah, it’s a seal’, because we thought it was something else and I said, ‘You know what they say, where there’s seals there’s sharks’,” he told the Manly Daily.
Moments later, it became a reality.
“It was literally like it was scripted, the moment he said that we saw a fair bit of splashing and a massive pool of blood,” said Mr James, 34, of Fairlight.
“Ivo yelled out, ‘Can you see the blood?’ We all saw it.
“The shark came in for a pretty big hit and splashed around.
“It was proper National Geographic style … it’s the only way I can describe it.”
Initially the group took a couple of paddles towards the area with curiosity — and possibly shock — getting the better of them.
“But as soon as the penny dropped we decided to scatter a little bit and then just decided it was better to all just stick together and huddle in as one big mass,” said Mr Lowes, 35, of Manly.
The sighting caused Northern Beaches Council to close Manly Beach on Saturday.
Lifeguards patrolled the area on Sunday morning. With no sign of the shark, the beach was reopened.
The four men said they believed the shark was a great white and around 5m long.
“Judging from the size of the seal, the size of the shark as well, I am pretty certain it probably was (a great white shark),” Mr James said.
They recorded the dorsal fin at about waist height.
And they said the way it breached the water was not indicative of other sharks.
“It lifted the seal about half a metre out of the water,” Mr Lowes said.
“Out of the whole thing I will remember the blood, a huge area of blood and the seal just being lifted out of the water by a big black thing.”
The men were all counting their lucky stars after the encounter.
“It took a while to stop shaking, actually all day,” Mr James said.
“You definitely don’t expect to see something like that around Manly.
“You see plenty of sharks but not like that.”
The group caught up for a debrief at the Hotel Steyne that afternoon.
“When we got to the beach it was pure love and hugs,” Mr James said.
“We were pretty stoked to make it back.
“ I only knew one of the guys (Stephen) well before the day but we are definitely good friends now.”