Transcript of Episode 5

White Lightning

It had all come down to a head-to-head battle. A large crowd was gathered on the shore, their excited cheers and whoops drifting out, softened on the surf. Cameras were poised from all angles, swiveling and swooping to catch the action. The two surfers felt their way into the contest, becoming attuned to the movement of the ocean under their boards, to the particular conditions on that pristine morning.

There were less than four minutes gone.

The young challenger took the first wave and caught it well.  

His older opponent calmly observed, sizing up his opening move. Head and neck raised watchfully, scanning the surf and straddling his board. His muscles began to contract, ready to set off. A sudden splashing sound, then a movement from behind made him flinch. Something was tugging on his ankle rope. Instinctively, he yanked his leg away, shaking, wriggling. He just knew something was wrong. A glance over his shoulder confirmed it. A fin rose high out of the water at his bare feet. His board was rising, slipping out from under him.

Panic. Punching. Kicking. Screaming. He waited for the teeth.

 The youngest son of an Irish father and English mother, Mick Fanning was born in 1981 in Penrith, a suburb of Sydney, Australia. Though he was only three when his parents divorced, they both remained involved in Mick’s upbringing and he spent some of his earlier years between each of their homes. But it was the last move with his mother and siblings to the coastal town of Ballina, that would come to define the course of Mick’s life, for better and for worse. Settling down on the Gold Coast with its incredible waves, the Fanning kids found the ideal place to nurture their all consuming passion for surfing- a hobby which Liz as a busy single mother was only too happy to encourage. Dropping them off for the day at one of the many great surf beaches- the only requirements a surfboard and board shorts- simplified the challenge of raising five kids, while working full-time to put food on the table. Pretty soon all the practice started quite literally paying off, and Mick’s sixteen year old brother, Sean, caught the eye of international surf brand, Quicksilver. Offering the Fanning’s a sponsorship contract for the talented teen, Mick- though a few years younger and with not quite the same pure talent- was thrown in to seal the deal. Over the next few years he competed gamely in local surf competitions. Remaining more of a contender than a champ, but kept improving and held the dream that he and his brother could make it big together on The World Tour someday. That youthful ambition would soon come to a sudden, tragic end.

Surfing can be a perilous pastime but it was on dry land that misfortune first hit the Fanning family. On an August night in 1998, Sean Fanning and his mate Joel Green hopped into the back of a friend’s station wagon as it left a party. Mick, who’d also been one of the partygoers, had decided to the stay on a while longer, turning down the offer of the ride. Later on as he walked home alone, some friends finally spotted him on the roadside. They had come to bring some devastating news- up ahead was the wreckage of a vehicle. A car had lost control and smashed into a tree. Sean and Joel hadn’t survived the collision. Falling into a deep haze of grief and shock, Mick retreated to his bedroom for days on end. Eventually he emerged from mourning, having hit rock bottom so hard it was if his will had been forged on impact. The best and only answer was to get back on his board and win for both himself and Sean. It was at the Konica Skins pro surfing event, against, on paper, much superior surfers, where the young rookie first announced himself with a stunning victory. Picking up the $21,000 prize money, on what would’ve been Sean’s 21st birthday, he dedicated the victory to the person who should’ve been there alongside him that day. The win would come to be seen as the take-off point for the phenomenal pro career of Mick Fanning, the most successful Australian surfer of his generation. Heading to the J-Bay Open on The World Tour in July 2015, he was on the hunt for his fourth world champion’s title to add to his impressive tally of trophies from 2007, 2009 and 2013.    

J-Bay had been a standout event on the World Surf League since 1996. Hosted by the little city of Jeffrey’s Bay on South Africa’s Eastern Cape, it was a stage elevated by the splendour of its location where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans meet. As well as breath-taking views, Jeffrey’s Bay boasted a consistently sensational surf, with CNN Travel ranking it second on its 50 best surfing spots in the World. However, intermingled with that scenic beauty, and the lure of the perfect right-hand ride, was a sense of danger beneath the waves. The tournament had been interrupted on a number of occasions by encounters between surfers and the bay’s most prominent resident- the great white shark. At J-Bay in 2003, Aussie surfer Taj Burrow was waiting for a wave in the semi-final when he suddenly noticed a metre-high dorsal fin cutting through the water, and heading straight towards him. Burrow bolted, managing to pull himself onto the rocks. Event organisers reassured the rattled star that it was only a whale. Given a pep talk, he was soon ushered back into the contest. Shellshocked by the incident and unable to recover, Taj Burrow was quickly eliminated. A water photographer who had been covering the event was the only other person to see the fin and he knew it was no whale.

Less than a month after Burrow’s escape, a closer encounter took place at a practice session for J-Bay’s Junior Series. Sixteen year old Joseph Krone was paddling out when a missile-like hit from below sent him flying into the air. A large chunk removed from his board, Krone was dragged under in the ruckus. Cut free when his surf leash was severed, he burst back up to the surface gasping for air. Luckily, much needed help was at hand. Shannon Ainslie had three years earlier survived a strike by not one, but two, great whites as he caught a wave. Remembering the long, lonely twenty minutes he paddled in, terrified and bleeding from his sliced-up hand, he fought his instinct to flee when he witnessed Joseph Krone knocked off his board. With Ainslie’s assistance, Krone made it to shore, shaken but uninjured. Showing incredible nerve, Joseph Krone was back in the surf the following day for the weekend’s semi-finals. Such incidents would ensure Jeffrey’s Bay gained a reputation as a particularly ‘sharky’ area amongst the international surfing community. Statistics bore this out- between 1989 and 2004, according to the Global Shark Attack File, one in every seven South African shark encounters involving surfers and bodyboarders had occurred off the coast of this small city. 

By 2007, the sense of risk remained tangible, and in the 2nd round of that year’s J-Bay Open, Mick Lowe spotted a shark halfway through a heat. Conflicted over how to react, he hung on til the end to secure victory, but did so filled with apprehension, saying after that he hadn’t really cared for the rest of the heat and had just wanted to come in. The pressure from sponsors, on top of their own competitive instincts, meant that most surfers felt it wasn’t easy to make their personal safety a priority. In the often macho world of pro-surfing there was also a subtle peer pressure to appear cool and unfazed. Mick Fanning, having glimpsed something that spooked him, on course to winning the 2007 event, remembered later that as there was only a minute to go he felt he should just ‘man up and not say anything’. The J-Bay organising team had offered some concession to competitor’s worries. A new shark policy read- ‘if you see a shark, wave your hands in the air, point at the water and head in’. Yet shark sightings still weren’t considered serious enough to merit changes to Jet Ski assistance rules. And if a surfer was forced to follow the shark protocol, they lost priority in the line-up, which could significantly hamper their chance of winning.   

Then in October 2013, months after Mick Fanning’s third title, the worst fears that had long surrounded Jeffrey’s Bay became a reality. 74 year old Burgert van der Westhuizen, a veteran open water swimmer, became the first shark fatality in the city’s history after crossing paths with a great white off Albatross Beach. Making the most of a glorious sunny day, Burgert had taken a break from mowing the lawn to enjoy a swim. Retracing part of the J-Bay Swim Challenge he’d completed so impressively the year before, his progress was suddenly and devastatingly interrupted. Volunteers collecting litter on the beach were left stunned, as the swimmer was lifted out of the water in the jaws of a shark. It was initially believed to have been a pair of great whites but witnesses had been mistaken due to the size of the creature involved. This particular shark’s unusually aggressive and predatory behaviour stood out in reports.

When local man Terry Oliver bravely paddled out in his kayak, he realised on arrival that Burgert was fatally wounded and that all he could do by then was rescue his remains. Yet before Terry could reach them, the five and half metre bulk of the shark surfaced like a mini submarine, and swam guardingly between the rescuer and the floating figure. Eventually after performing a number of protective circles, it opened its jaws and continued to feed on the body. As blows from his oar did nothing to halt the predation, Terry Oliver felt a growing unease. The kayaker decided to abandon his now hopeless rescue and head for shore. Yells from the beach quickly alerted Terry that the shark was following him. Luckily, he made it in with both he and his vessel intact. Recounting his tale to the Herald Live, he said that in spite of his lifelong passion for surfing, after what he’d witnessed he didn’t think he’d be returning to the water for a good while. Once the details of Burgert Van Der Westhuizen’s gruesome death spread around the local community, many others felt the same as Terry Oliver, after a tragedy described as ‘horrific’ and ‘unbelievable’. Owing to its prominence on The World Tour, the fatality was debated intensely by the professional surfers expected to compete at the annual J-Bay Open. But by the time the tournament came round the following July, though an undercurrent of anxiety remained, it was soon replaced by the roar of competition as surfers battled blustery winds, colder than normal temperatures and long paddle outs. In spite of any concerns the organisers or competitors may have had, the event passed off without any trace of a shark, the issue remaining out of sight and out of mind. 

On the morning of July 19th 2015, Mick Fanning woke up feeling surprisingly cheerful. It had undoubtedly been a painful few months. The veteran surfer was right in the middle of a divorce from his wife of seven years, Karissa- their marriage strained beyond breaking point by his globetrotting career. Yet Mick, dubbed ‘White Lightning’ by the surf media for his phenomenal speed and bright blonde hair, had suffered before, and time and time again he’d found wells of resolve deep inside himself. That morning was the final of the J-Bay Open and all other troubles were parked to one side. Mick was pumped. He knew adversity well and it always seemed to focus him. Aside from his brother Sean’s sudden death, Mick had seen his career quite literally ripped apart, when in 2004 he tore his hamstring off the bone on a surf trip in Indonesia. The injury had threatened to end his dream of one day becoming world champion, but after only five months he was back on a board and hunting the title. The time out had made him re-evaluate his dedication, and coming back stronger, he went on to win the 2007 World Championship.

Eight years later at J-Bay and with two more titles under his belt, the thirty-four year old was now hoping to grab a fourth, equalling the record of the legendary Kelly Slater, who he’d edged out in the semis. A head-to-head stood in his way, facing off against his long-time mate and fellow Aussie, Julian Wilson, but Mick felt in his own words ‘unbeatable’ right then. For him, Jeffrey’s Bay was a home from home, with a community that embraced him, spectacular views and most importantly, some of the best waves on Earth. He’d built a strong attachment to the place over many years on the Pro League Tour and it had been good to him- bagging three J-Bay wins over the years. As he paddled out into the surf at Supertubes, he wondered what Sean would think if he could see him now. But very soon, with the sudden sound of a splash and a tug of his leash, victory became the last thing on his mind.

‘Oh… Holy shit’, World Surf League commentator Martin Potter gasped, unable to believe what he was seeing. Days before the competition, his colleagues Strider Wasilewski (‘wozilooski’) and Rosy Hodge had relayed how they’d caught a timely wave, taking them away from an approaching white shark. It was one of a number of close sightings in the lead-up to the 2015 J-Bay Open. The event that year also aligned awkwardly with the annual sardine run, when huge shoals of the fish migrate along South Africa’s coastline, the banquet drawing scores of marine predators, including sharks. Still, no one expected something would ever happen during a live final. As the camera hovered on Mick Fanning, that distinctive dorsal fin had popped up right behind him, leaving Martin Potter momentarily speechless. On live webcast, the Australian was watched by viewers all across the world as it dawned on him what the dark triangle was. Desperately kicking backwards as the fin swivelled around him, a swell came and lifted Fanning off the precarious safety of his board. Then, carrying on, it formed into a wall of water, lifting like a curtain and obscuring both man and shark, as if to censor what horror was taking place. Two separate splashes burst up from the struggle taking place behind the rising swell, as it swept towards shore. For nine impossibly long seconds before it broke with a crash of foam, nothing could be seen. Mercifully, the camera team had taken the sensible decision to cut to a wide shot of Jeffrey’s Bay, the waves coming in on the rocky shore, lined with confused spectators.

From that distant viewpoint, first a motorboat, then a pair of jet-skis, raced into the picture to survey the fallout. Mick’s biggest supporter, his mother Liz was watching it all at home. Eyes fixed on the screen, she stood in a trance and walked towards the TV, unable to believe what she was seeing. Holding her breath, she waited.

Then, the camera flickered. The next shot was of Mick being pulled onto a jet ski, holding his severed ankle leash up in astonishment but seemingly uninjured. The second jet ski had lifted his opponent, Julian Wilson, from the water. The Queenslander had grown up idolising Mick Fanning and saw from his board the exact moment the shark appeared. Showing great bravery, he started sprint paddling straight for his compatriot to do anything he could to save him, though all the while fearing it might be too late. An alarm had started sounding on shore by then, heightening the sense of emergency. Mick had started swimming too, glancing around furtively, terrified the shark was going to come back from beneath him for round two. The rapid response of the jet skis put an end to that fear. Once back on dry land the relief of both finalists was palpable as they hugged. Mick, extremely grateful to Wilson for coming to his aid, shook his head in disbelief. Unfortunately, the jet ski rescue had forgotten one man. Veteran surfing photographer, Kelly Cestari, had been left out in the water. Realising there was no one coming to pick him up, he started making his way back to the beach. The 50 metre swim alone felt like a lifetime as the experienced waterman tried his best to minimise any splashing that could alert unwanted attention. Thankfully he made it to shore safely but almost unnoticed amidst the clamour.

Watching from the beach, nobody could believe what they had witnessed. Twelve years on from his shark scare at the same event, Taj Burrow told Stabmag: ‘I'm still kind of in shock, I can't even imagine how Mick feels. I thought he was just getting eaten in front of a live audience on live TV.’ Kelly Slater was likewise startled by what he’d seen, but at the same time not entirely surprised. Talking to reporters about surfing at J-Bay he’d confided- ‘You sit out there... today I probably thought about it 30 times. I had three heats and probably thought about it 10 times in each heat. I’m just sitting out here, there’s no one around, if a shark’s around he’s just going to see or hear me. It’s a reality surfing in Africa.’

Event organisers were beyond relieved at how Mick had come away unscathed. Hurrying to draw a line under that year’s competition, they agreed to give the result as a tie and split the prize money. Filled with gratitude at escaping his close shave, Mick donated his $75,000 share to the recovery fund of shark bite victim, Matt Lee. Only seventeen days earlier, Lee had been bodyboarding at one of Mick’s beloved teenage haunts, North Wall Break in Ballina, when his legs had been shredded by a great white. Mick, finding himself back on the Gold Coast, had actually been planning on heading down there that day until he got a text from a friend with news of Matt Lee’s ordeal. Characteristically, he played down the generosity of the donation saying it was ‘like helping family’.  

Mick had struggled to believe he was still alive in the aftermath of J-Bay 2015, exclaiming to interviewers, ‘to walk away from a shark attack without a scratch on you- it’s a miracle really’. While he was certainly lucky considering what might’ve happened, shark behaviour rather than divine intervention probably had more to do with him living to tell the tale. Of the 6 previous run-ins between surfers and sharks at Jeffrey’s Bay, 3 riders got away completely unharmed, while the others had non-critical injuries. At Nahoon, East London, another South African surf haven notorious for sharky waters, 8 of the 10 surfers struck by sharks escaped with minor or no injuries. Shark expert R. Aidan Martin pointed out the intense curiosity of great whites in National Geographic. This trait, combined with vision as good underwater as humans see above it, compels them to come to examine even fist-sized objects floating up at the surface. Great white sharks have been known to chew on all sorts of items, such as life buoys, kayaks, and of course, surfboards. Shark expert Andy Casagrande speculated that when the shark at J-Bay, a younger, inexperienced white, came in to inspect the unfamiliar shapes in the surf it had been put off by the board’s leash, possibly saving Mick ‘life or limb’. From Casagrande’s observations he’s noted that sharks react to ropes like ‘humans having cold water poured down their backs’, jerking away instinctively. Trying to avoid becoming entangled, the shark had inadvertently knocked Mick into the water, before beating a hasty retreat. Mick Fanning wondered in the aftermath if the colour of his board might’ve attracted unwanted attention. US Naval Research in the 60s and 70s suggested sharks were attracted to bright colours like yellow or orange. Although later research indicates sharks may be colourblind, it’s thought that certain brighter hues may contrast more with the water and provoke sharks’ curiosity. Whatever the case may be, Mick Fanning decided to switch what he called his ‘yum yum yellow’ board for a darker one. But two things were abundantly clear in the aftermath of his encounter- that worries about sharks were still playing on his mind, and that he had a lot to learn about the animals. Both would come to shape the following years of his life.   

But first there would be a few false starts and suffering. Mick was on the flight home to Australia, alone for the first time since all the commotion at J-Bay, when the passenger next to him pointed to a newspaper and asked if the face on the front page was his. Right then the scale of what had happened started to hit home and he choked up with emotion. Up to that point it’d been a surreal, out of body experience, as relief and adrenaline flowed. Mick described the Jeffrey’s Bay after party as like being at his own wake. The media frenzy waiting for him on his landing further underlined that his story wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. In the moments after being hauled onto the rescue jet-ski at J-Bay, head spinning, laughing and grateful to be alive, he’d said he was happy never to surf competitively again. Arriving at Sydney airport he put any suggestion of that to bed, stating ‘surfing’s got me through the hardest times in my life, so to turn my back on surfing wouldn’t be right’.

Mick chose to face the media head on, appearing on a 60 Minutes Australia special only a few days after his homecoming. ‘I’m scared of them, but it doesn’t mean I don’t love them’, Mick told host Peter Stefanovic, articulating his complex relationship with the nation’s famous ocean dweller. Hoping to exorcise a few demons on national TV, he paddled out for the cameras in a gentle surf. Unfortunately, it didn’t go according to plan. The four-time world champion was soon rushing in, having spotted a fin. On the shore his mother Liz once again agonised as her son pointed out a shape out in the surf. Whether it had definitely been a shark or not, it was clear that Mick was still spooked and that recovery mightn’t be as instant as he had hoped. Watching the 60 Minutes footage back afterwards, with what he described as the ‘stalker-like’ water cam, the eerie perspective of being watched triggered further anxiety and nightmares. Waking up panting or even jolted from a horrible daydream, he’d find himself back once again on his board at J-Bay. Sensing a motion and a noise behind him, feeling a sudden panic that he wouldn’t get away this time… before snapping back to reality.

Carrying this heavy burden, Mick did manage to fully return to surfing quicker than anyone expected. By December 2015 he was back competing for honours again at Hawaii’s Pipeline Masters, when a call arrived on the morning of the competition. Everything went dark again, as he was informed that his older brother Peter had died suddenly from a medical condition. The unexpected death of another sibling who Mick considered, like Sean, a ‘hero’ of his, was a final blow in a year to forget. On receiving the devastating news however, this time Mick didn’t lock himself away. ‘I knew I could find the strength to take part in the final event of the season because that’s what Pete would want’, he explained, after rallying to win the heat in Hawaii, taking him back to Number 1 in the World Surf League.  

The return of the three-time winner of the competition to J-Bay 2016 was met with great excitement. Recovering from an ankle sprain, Mick Fanning arrived in Jeffrey’s Bay off the back of an incredible few months with some unfinished business. With all eyes on White Lightning, he rose to the occasion, going on to record an emphatic victory, hailed by a Surf League commentator as ‘one of the greatest comebacks in sport’. Fittingly, the 2016 victory at J-Bay, which Fanning called his ‘pinnacle’, would be his last on the World Surf League tour.

Incredibly, Mick Fanning’s J-Bay chronicles held one more shark story. In the 2017 Open he was in the middle of a head-to-head with Brazilian surfer Gabriel Medina when an alert went up. Jet-skis whooshed in and picked up both of the competitors within a matter of seconds. An unexpected spectator in the form of a three-metre long great white had been spotted entering the competition area. The response showed how the competition had come on since 2015, with Mick saying after that he’d felt ‘really safe’. Drones and planes had been deployed from the 2016 J-Bay event, along with more responsive jet-skis. Shark detection devices called Clever Buoys were also employed, with the recently retired Taj Burrow an ambassador and advocate for the new technology. Altogether they represented successful mitigation measures to allow the competition and sharks to coexist safely. Such innovations may one day be rolled out on a wider scale to allow sharks and boarders to better share the surf.

In Mick’s backyard of Eastern Australia they would be timely. Mick Fanning has acknowledged seeing ‘so much more shark activity’, with Matt Lee’s bite at Ballina just one of an apparent growing number. Records for New South Wales do show an overall rise since the turn of the century, with 17 incidents recorded in the year 2009, and again in 2015, whereas the entirety of the 1990s only had a total of 12 in the state. Many factors are involved- none of which include bloodthirsty sharks developing a taste for human flesh. In fact the main one is the success of surfing itself. It’s estimated that Australia now has around 2.5 million active surfers, around 10% of the population. This is a similar proportion, but a much higher number, than in the 1980s but how people surf has drastically changed since then. The amount of time spent on the hobby has increased exponentially, with the wide availability of neoprene wetsuits allowing all-year round activity and much longer sessions- protected against the cold, though naturally a tiny fraction more vulnerable to meeting a shark as a result. The figure of 15 million individual surf sessions estimated to take place on the Gold Coast annually puts those odds into perspective.         

Although Mick had managed to defeat the world’s best at J-Bay, there was still another opponent left to confront. It was finally time for Mick to come face to face with sharks again. Partly it was to test if he’d overcome the worst of his fears following his encounter. Mick spoke out increasingly about his inner struggles with the effects of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. The nightmares, anxiety and flashbacks had been tough, but through conversations with soldiers, divers and surfers who had had near-death or other traumatic experiences, he felt he’d taken back control. Another motivation was to educate himself about sharks and try to understand them. The result was a documentary series, Save This Shark, which followed Mick on his journey. Along the way he cage dived with great whites, kissed a reef shark and free dived with five tiger sharks in the Bahamas. From observing them in their natural habitats he came away, admittedly often shaken, but with enhanced insight, seeing the vast variety across shark species and how members within each species displayed individual personalities. These observations also put his flash J-Bay encounter into context- ‘You didn’t see it cruising for the 23 hours and 59 minutes of every other part of its day’, he told The Australian newspaper.

In 2021, with the world of surfing, like the world at large, knocked off kilter by the Covid Pandemic, Mick Fanning announced a World Surf League comeback at Narrabeen, North Sydney. In August 2020 he’d become a father for the first time with his long-term girlfriend Breeana, but he wanted another shot, eager to show his new family that he still had something left in the tank. When Narrabeen came around, predictably enough, a shark was involved; surfers being pulled out of the water for 15 minutes as spotters watched it swim casually off down the coast. The competition resumed and though he couldn’t manage to upset the odds again, Mick enjoyed what could be his last hurrah on the tour. He knows he’s come a long way since, in his words ‘pretty much depression’, when it was hard to see a way back. Sometimes he still hears splashes but is better at accepting them and not letting it get to him, using the tools he’d acquired from personal tragedies to heal himself. He’s also found other ways to turn the trauma into a positive. In 2019, after kneeboarder Matt Gallagher had been rammed into the water by a shark at Urunga, New South Wales, he received a surprising text message. ‘Hi, it’s MF. I heard what happened. If you want to chat, call me anytime’, it read, coming from someone who could certainly relate. Mick Fanning has indeed come a long way since his unenviable role in the most watched moment in surfing history- 28 million views and counting on YouTube. Today he finds himself at peace with the close encounter- asserting confidently ‘I’ve dealt with it’- and is as happy as he’s ever been, now enjoying surfing again like he did as a child growing up on the Gold Coast.

On the Wikipedia page for the J-Bay Open, there’s a list of the winner and runner-up from each year. Though they split the prize money, for 2015, the ‘Runner-up’ slot is filled by the names of both ‘Mick Fanning’ and ‘Julian Wilson’. In spite of his incredible achievements and mastery of the waves, Mick has developed and sustained his belief, that ‘we are visitors to the ocean’. The bravado tales of Aussie Hardman Mick Fanning punching a shark, which still do the rounds, are brushed off with embarrassment by the man himself saying ‘I was no more than a passenger that day. It was him making all the decisions’. Serving as a humble reminder of this fact and of who has true primacy of the surf, the winner of the 2015 J-Bay Open is listed simply as ‘Shark’.