I Survived A Shark Attack!

An Australian spear fisherman battles a dreaded great white

- Rodney Fox

MY WIFE, KAY, looked quite miserable standing there as I said goodbye at 6:30 a.m. that Sunday morning in December 1963. She was expecting our first child, and the doctor had firmly told her not to go. Kay was experiencing complications, and travelling would have made her pregnancy riskier. I wish now that the doctor’s advice had applied to me, as well.

Two hours later, however, I was standing on the cliff at Aldinga Beach, 55 kilometres south of our home in Adelaide, South Australia. This was why I’d set out so early. Now I had time to carefully study the dark patterns of bottom growth on the reef under the coming blue-green swells. Aldinga reef is a paradise, a happy hunting ground for underwater spear fishermen like me.

Forty of us—each with black rubber suits and flippers, glass-windowed face masks, snorkels, lead-weighted belts and spearfishing guns—were waiting for the referee’s 9:00 a.m. whistle to announce that the annual South Australian Spearfishing Championship competition had begun. We all had five hours to bring the judges a bag of fish. The winner would be determined both by total weight and by number of different species.

I was confident I’d do well. I’d taken the 1961–62 competition and was returning as the reigning champion. I had promised Kay that this would be my last competition. I meant to clinch the title and then retire in glory, diving only for fun from then on—hopefully joined by Kay. I was 23 and in peak shape after months of training. All the contestants were “free divers,” with no artificial breathing aids. I’d trained myself to dive safely to just over 30 metres and to hold my breath for more than a minute without discomfort.