Tuesday, January 06, 2009

sharks in the water


Man oh man…how much newsprint and airtime is going to be expended between now and the end of the Rotto Channel Swim on sharks, shark sightings and shark fear?

A lot. The poor old sharks. One hand a story about urging tough laws for people who slaughter them up north, and on the other loathing over them daring to dip a fin in Gage Roads (can’t locate link for that one).

‘there's many ways to die, the game is to survive,
come someone from behind, he'll eat you up alive.’

Of course we’ve been here before: it’s nothing new. See Robert Drewe, The Shark Net, for his recollection of his shark obsession…

“…it had to be that sharks were buried deep in my collective unconscious…clearly some of us were born with it – like the chicken’s instinct for the shadow of the hawk. It was amazing what I saw in the back-froth of a snapping wave, in the darker patchwork of weed and reef. Was that surge just a diving shag? Was the shadow really a passing cloud? Or the first and last hint of the white pointer’s charge? This, I thought, was obviously the underlying anxiety of my life.”

4 comments:

  1. Anonymous8:54 AM

    The best shark is one which has been sliced, then cooked in a coating of crispy beer batter and served with a generous portion of chips and a pickled onion.

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  2. freo is on the right track. However, if you are stupid enough to want to swim to Rotto rather than take the ferry then why not make you increase your pace a bit by the threat of natures own wanting to take a slice of the action.

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  3. DC, you know my thoughts on this one - the answer is IN the pylon. I have some octopus that will help you see the truth.

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  4. @fremantlebiz

    Go watch Shark Water. Creep. Ha Ha I Love Animals - BARBECUED! Amirite or amirite! You must be the unfunny uncle.

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