Australian surfer and musician Hein Cooper tells us what he saw.
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| Hein Cooper |
"Absolutely life changing experience. 2 days ago Myself and a couple of mates were chased in by a big old Great White whilst surfing at home.
I was out off a point break with 5-6 others in the mid afternoon in a remote location. I turned to see a large fin coming up the headland from the beach (around 30 metres away). It was slightly tipping over which made me think it could be a seal (apparently that’s something whites do when they’re looking for food in the shallows…).
I turned away for a moment then looked back again to double check what I’d seen. It was considerable closer, moving towards us but in a relaxed way. I was much more certain it was a shark this time. Then, we all looked over and what happened next I will never forget.
A large fin around 30-40cm tall (it was the length of my MacBook Pro from one side of the screen to the other) moving straight for us around 7-8 metres away. I could see scars on the fin and patches of white which apparently means it wasn’t a juvenile. And the boys did some research and called a few people and it looks very much like it was a GWS around 3.5-4 metres long. So this thing was moving straight for us. I shouted ‘SHARK’ and we all paddled for our Lives straight onto the rocks. Now for some reason the shark actually went around us and only really moved in once it reached our flank and the video footage confirms it. If it had wanted too it could have been on any of us within a couple seconds. I think the kicking and scrambling made it cautious for a moment and when it had made up its mind we were all up on the rocks.
What has stayed with me most is the energy and presence it had. Absolutely magnificent creature showing us who’s really boss. Very grateful that we all made it out and of course now I’ve got a good story to tell 😂 The footage doesn’t represent the shark well but you can see that even once we were up the rocks it was coming for us!"
