Shark shock for surf-ski paddler
He fell back into the water, not really sure if the shark was still there or if it had swum off.
Roger Swinney (58), a former South Coast school teacher, came close to being face-to-face with a great white shark while out on an early morning paddle at Nahoon Reef in East London on Boxing Day..
He described how the shark hit the surf-ski from directly below, attacking upwards and taking a sizeable chunk out of it, knocking him into the water in the process.
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“The power with which it hit the ski was quite something,” he said.
Later, he would discover it was believed to be a juvenile great white, judging by the circumference of the bite marks.
“It still seemed huge to me,” he said with a wry grin a few days later. “When I was in the water I could see it watching me.”
He climbed back onto his surf-ski and tried to paddle away, but it rapidly filled up with water and before long the nose was pointing skywards.
He fell back into the water, not really sure if the shark was still there or if it had swum off.
Roger is a vastly experienced paddler. His first reaction was not fear of death, but an (almost comical) lament of ‘why me?’ and ‘not again’.
This was because it was the second time in the space of three months that he has been stranded miles out to sea in a broken craft.
It was also because he had spent three weeks painstakingly fixing the ski.
The incident a few months ago did not involve a shark, thankfully.
He had been taking part in a race when another vessel crashed into his, piercing the side.
It filled with water and he was unable to paddle, so spent an hour or so waiting for help.
This didn’t arrive as soon as he had hoped and by the time he reached Gonubie Point, he realised he was going to have to swim back to shore – a distance of about 2km.
He was horribly seasick, cold and vomiting and, ironically perhaps, described this ordeal as worse than the encounter with the shark.
On Boxing Day, his 16 year old son Luke had paddled out with him.
Roger had gone on ahead, with Luke about 50 metres behind, when the shark struck.
He came to his father’s assistance and – long story short – paddled back to the beach with his father lying on the back of the ski.
The broken ski was recovered by other paddlers and towed to shore.
Roger said he had remained calm despite knowing that the shark was circling him.
“I have no idea how long it stuck around. It was only when I reached the beach that it really hit me. I just thanked the Lord that I was okay,” he said.
He was proud of his son, and thankful. “To be honest I’m just glad it wasn’t his ski that got hit by the shark.”
Luke, who works at the beach as a lifeguard during the school holidays, has only recently started paddling, but is already showing signs that he will be, at the very least, as skillful and tenacious as his father.
Roger and his wife Marlene and their two sons (Luke has an older brother, Josh) have lived in East London since 2013, having previously been on the South Coast for many years.
His parents Peter and Felicity still live in Margate but had been visiting at the time of the incident.
Roger was a little bit surprised that it had happened, suggesting that it wasn’t really the right time of year for these sharks to be so far up the coast.
“Perhaps the orcas have pushed them up a bit,” he said with a laugh.
He’ll be back in the ocean soon enough, but first has to figure out what to do with the broken ski in his yard (the scrap heap seems a likely option at the moment).
That, and fielding calls from the UK and USA for interviews!
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