A CLOSE encounter with a two-metre shark is not going to put Camperdown surfer Ash Sinnott off returning to ride the waves.
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About 5.30pm on Tuesday Mr Sinnott was surfing with his two sons Billy, 15, and Jake, 13, out front of the whale viewing platform at Warrnambool’s Logans Beach.
After riding a wave in, he started paddling back out and was taking a break in a channel when a 2.1-metre shark knocked him off his surfboard.
“My two sons and three other blokes were probably 20 metres away. I pulled up for a spell,” Mr Sinnott said.
“It came up past my leg, hit me on the hip area and put its nose into my ribs, into my guts.
“It was right out of the water. I sort of hit its nose with my elbow to push it away.
“It knocked me sideways. Its tail hit the front of my board and I fell off. I got back on pretty quick. It just swam away.”
Mr Sinnott said his sons and the two other surfers saw the shark’s tail, realised what had happened and paddled back into the beach.
“I’ve got a seven-foot board and it was at least as long as my board. I think it was a bronze whaler,” the 36-year-old said.
“I wasn’t too bad. It was just so silent and then it was just there. It was a weird feeling.
“I just felt it hit me from the side. I didn’t panic. I was probably worse when I got back to the beach.”
The long-time scuba diver said he had taken up surfing again in the past two years to spend time with his sons after retiring from playing football.
“In all the time I’ve dived and surfed it’s the first time I’ve ever seen a shark. That was getting close. I didn’t see the water ripple. It came straight up from underneath me,” Mr Sinnott said.
“I’m fine now. We’ll probably head out again Saturday. I’m not too fussed. I want to thank the other two blokes who came back in to make sure me and the boys were OK. I really appreciated that. I don’t even know who they are.”
The Five Star Stockfeeds fitter and turner said he and his boys surfed the same spot on Monday night with about 20 other surfers, but overcoming the family matriarch may prove a challenge in future.
“Leah (wife) is not keen on me taking the boys out. She’s a bit nervous now,” the 1999 Camperdown premiership player said.
“The shark was pretty cool. The sheer size of its girth was amazing. It just flicked me off.
“It was pretty random. It was that cold I didn’t know if I had been bitten. I was surprised I didn’t get a scratch,” he said.
Bronze whaler sharks are not friendly to humans, but usually don’t harm anyone unless there is a presence of food or prey in the water.