JAWS: Byron Bay

In addition to the snakes and spiders and box jellyfish and other animals that can kill you in Australia, there is one predator that you fear as a surfer: a shark.  When I was at Spot X, we were asked to name some dangers in the water.  The two responses the instructors were waiting for were rip currents and other surfers, but someone almost always made a joke about sharks.

You know they're out there, but you just don't really focus on them.  If you only ever worried about shark attacks, you'd never venture into the water.  Besides, supposedly more people in the world die from being hit by lightning than from shark attacks.  But they do happen.

I was just sitting in the Mojo offices, catching up on my blogs, when I heard on of my bosses say on the phone, "Did you hear about the shark attack in Byron this morning?"  I stopped typing.  I turned around to the other marketing girl in the room and asked, "Did she just say what I think she said?!" 

http://stabmag.com/fatal-shark-attack-in-byron-bay/

Immediately I started Google searching this supposed shark attack.  Sure enough, a 50 year old man had been bitten by a shark on Clarkes Beach in Byron.  I was in shock.  It could have been a shark attack on any beach in Australia, but it just happened to be in the town where I'm living.  

Throughout the evening I kept talking to people at the AFL about the attack; everyone had heard about it.  Everyone was sharing stories because many people had been at or near the beach when it happened.  A guy I met from California said he had been surfing about 100 meters away from the man when he was bitten.  Other friends, unaware of the situation, told me about how they were in town when they saw police vehicles and an ambulance head to the beach.

http://stabmag.com/fatal-shark-attack-in-byron-bay/

There was a buzz everywhere about the shark.  To be honest, though, it doesn't detour me from swimming or surfing.  I don't plan on going into the water for a couple days, but if the weather is nice this weekend when I'm off of work, I will definitely go for a swim.  Terrible things can happen, but the possibility that they might shouldn't keep you from living.