Surfers miss shark call

Press, 10 January 1984, Page 7

Surfers miss shark call

Board riders off the Waimakariri River bar at Pines Beach caused concern to surf life-savers during a shark scare yesterday afternoon.

The Surf Life-Saving Association’s publicity officer, Mr Geoff Le Cren, said last evening that bathers were cleared from the water but that the surfers were too far out to get the message. “We were lucky that the shark was going the other way,” he said. The sighting was one of three at northern beaches. A

shark was seen twice, first at Woodend then at Waikuku.

Mr Le Cren said that it had not been possible to determine the species of the sharks. They might have been basking sharks and not dangerous.

He attributed the unusually high number of sightings this season to the fact that a lot of krill were swimming up the coast and attracting more fish to the area.

Most beaches had been quiet yesterday, perhaps because of the shark scares,

he said. Also, the easterly wind had deterred some swimmers and other people had returned to work.

No rescues were made, but because of a strong drift surf life-savers were kept busy ensuring that bathers remained within patrolled areas.

Mr Le Cren said that most bathers had been wellbehaved, particularly during the shark alerts. Any slowness in leaving the water had been caused by difficulties in “getting the message across” and not by deliberate unco-operativeness.