49-year-old male surfer, Tim Van Heerden has died after being bitten on the leg twice by a shark while surfing Plettenberg Bay – a semi-secret spot two plus hours drive south from Jefferys Bay. According to reports, the surfer had spotted the relatively small two-metre long white after kicking out of a wave.
In an act of pure bravery he warned the other four surfers in the water at the time of the sharks presence, and they managed to make their way in safely – Tim was not so lucky. As reported in The Sun newspaper, the shark turned on him, “first biting him at the top of the leg, then pulling him underwater before biting him again.”
Tim did manage to make the shoreline where the other surfers subsequently helped him up the beach, but he’d already lost a lot of blood from having had the artery in his thigh severed by the bites.
Plettenburg is a sand-bottom right-hander that breaks just beyond a river mouth that gushes cool, fresh water from the surrounding mountains into the ocean. Hardened locals that call the place home are treated to some amazing waves just beyond the Look-Out restaurant that sits above this beautiful break. Their wish to keep the place out of the media has become futile with a number of shark sightings and now a death.
Tracks spent an afternoon surfing the right in 2010 with the Youngblood Billabong team. Sitting in the water we saw giant whales playing in the middle of the bay while snow-capped mountains poked their way into the skyline off in the distance – an amazingly beautiful spot for sure. But there is no denying that beauty was tinged with a sense of eeriness. The water running out into the break, an ice-cold torrent that both breathes life into the groomed sandbank, and attracts fish and sharks a-plenty. It had that feel about it.
An earlier warning of white activity in the area came from Matt O’Carrol who spoke of being boxed in by a five-metre great white after warning fellow surfers of its presence. Luckily for Matt he managed to escape.
The Sun also reported that South Africa’s National Sea Rescue Institute spokesman, Craig Lambinon said, “emergency personnel had worked on the man on the way to a local hospital, and doctors had tried for hours to save him, but he tragically passed away.”
All of us at Tracks offer our sincere condolences to Tim’s family.
Yet another reminder that we are playing in someone else’s playground.
VIDEO: Surfing Plettenberg and Jefferys Bay
