Many of us woke to the terrible news yesterday morning of a young woman attacked by a bull shark in Elizabeth Bay in Sydney Harbour. Shark attacks are always, always big news, feeding (sorry..) from a deep well-spring of shark-lore that was somehow baked into our collective consiousness by Spielberg’s 1975 film, Jaws.
I wrote an opinion piece about it for today’s Sydney Morning Herald. You can link to the article here
“There are so many laughs. It’s a joy”
Like so many Australians, I love the water and swimming. In addition, I’m lucky enough to live close to Sydney Harbour with its abundant baths and swimming enclosures. I’m even luckier to be part of a fabulous group of friends and neighbours who have been swimming together for coming up to four years. While we live in Balmain and enjoy our own local Dawn Fraser Baths, our swim group’s preferred location is Greenwich Baths, a five minute boat trip across the harbour at Greenwich Point on Sydney’s north shore.
We started going there when ‘Dawnies’ was closed for nearly two years for refurbishment and it kind of stuck. And the boat ride? Well, that’s a big part of the attraction too. The wind in your hair, bumping over the wash of passing ferries, staggering around on one leg in a small space, trying to get changed. There are so many laughs. It’s a joy.
The only small negative with this thrice-weekly adventure is the necessary swim from the boat to the shore in order to get into the Baths. It can be quite a short swim, indeed sometimes a walk, depending on the tide and the anchor spot. But sometimes it seems rather a distance – not from a swimming challenge perspective but because the water is deep, we can’t see the bottom and we all know about bull sharks. Their numbers have been growing and they are attracted to the increasingly warm harbour and the Parramatta River where they breed and raise their pups.
Especially on overcast days or after rain, when the water may be on the murky side, we mutter only half joking comments about being quick to get in and out, lest we encounter one of these apex predators.
Of course none of us has come to any harm – except for the occasional sea lice bite and even rarer electric shock from a small coffin ray, camouflaged on the sandy floor (keep your feet up!). But yesterday’s news has sent a little shiver through us all. We are reminded that when we are in the ocean or the harbour, we are in the habitat of all marine creatures, including sharks. It’s up to us to understand their habits and behaviours and make good decisions.
We are so fortunate to have these stunning marine assets at our feet – we should respect them and care for them so we can all enjoy them safely.
Keryn Curtis at work 