Looking back towards the beach through the wind and spray I could make out the black flag above the shark spotters hut. Having never been too concerned about sharks, I’ve never learned the flags by heart, assuming that if there was a problem there would be a very loud and very obvious alarm as opposed to a solitary flag blowing in the wind.
“I don’t want to alarm you.”
“What?” I replied, my hearing impeded by the howling offshore wind and driving rain.
“I said I don’t want to alarm you,” Luke repeated dropping the hood of his wetsuit to reveal his full face. “But you see that flock of birds out there?”
I craned my neck to look over the oncoming swells, this was no flock. A flock is a small gathering of birds on a peaceful summer evening, heading off into the sunset in perfect formation. This was an angry snarl, a full-on swarm rolling across the surface of the ocean not more than 300 metres away from us.
“Well,” Luke’s expression was almost sheepish. “That’s a feeding frenzy.”
“Right... What’s that mean?” I replied, immediately regretting such a stupid response thus prolonging the conversation and with it our time in the open water.
“Well, the birds are following the sardines. If there’s sardines there’ll be seals and if there’s seals there’ll be sharks, big sharks,” Luke said, passing the conversational baton back to me. Instinct said to drop it and run but I’d only known Luke a short time and I wasn’t about to loose face in a mad dash to the beach.
“OK, so what do we do?” I replied, now alarmed but moderately comforted by my slightly superior proximity to the sand.
“Well, I usually paddle in but it seems to be moving quickly down the beach so it should be OK, we’ll just keep an eye on it.” Was this a display of machismo, extreme vacancy or was he just enjoying winding up the English fella? Either way the next wave was my last.
Sharks are an occupational hazard for any surfer in South Africa but the chance of attack is extremely slim and it doesn’t really bear thinking about. However, there is something so incredibly sinister about a shark attack and being exposed on all sides with the constant thought of being snatched away so suddenly to the deep that a surfer’s mind won’t rest easy: hence the need for Shark Spotters.
Arriving back at the Muizenberg beach early the following morning I meet Patrick. He wears a black jacket emblazoned on both front and back with the large and unmistakeable outline of “old Johnny”. His collar is turned up against the cold morning wind and a large woollen hat covers his dreadlocked hair. He is immediately friendly and approachable and invites me over to the modest, white washed wooden cabin that represents Cape Town Shark Spotters HQ. The inside of the shack is covered with newspaper articles and magazine pullouts, on closer inspection it emerges that the majority are not about shark attacks but on the inspirational story behind the establishment of the Shark Spotter Scheme and Patrick himself.
Patrick began life at Surfer’s Corner as a car guard. “I could earn up to 800 rand a day,” he says, a proud smile lighting up his face. “The surfers, they knew me, they could trust me. Sometimes I would have 40 pairs of car keys in my jacket pocket.”
He tells me how his work saved him, that he was fast descending into the same spiral of drink and drugs as many of his peers and that staying on the rails was vital if he was to maintain the trust invested in him by the local surfers. “But then JP got attacked and the surfers stopped coming.”
JP, a popular local surfer, was the victim of the first serious shark incident to take place on Muizenburg beach. He lost his right leg to a Great White and in the weeks and months following his attack Surfer’s Corner became more and more empty. With car numbers dwindling, Patrick took it upon himself to do something. Taking up position on the mountainside overlooking the beach he equipped himself with a cell phone and a pair of binoculars. He would keep watch over the water and, with the help of his friends in the Kalk Bay fishing fleet, would telephone Lifestyles surf shop if he saw a suspect shadow approaching.
“But Lifestyles is a busy store, on the weekends sometimes they wouldn’t pick up,” he says with a rye smile. “Then Greg [Greg Bertish, highly respected local surfer] provided the two-way radios and we had the grounds for a proper operation.”
This was in 2004. Since then the Shark Spotter Scheme has secured funding from the WWF and the AfriOceans Conservation Alliance. Cape Town city has provided a grant of 400,000 Rand and several top international surf brands have all provided additional sponsorship. The scheme now employs 34 staff in summer from the beaches of False Bay, all the way around Cape Point and up to Noordhoek thus ensuring that the Cape’s beaches are safe for bathers and surfers alike. They also operate a tagging system to track sharks and provide important data on their movement patterns as well as running a fully interactive website where surfers can log in to view the ‘Shark ‘O’ Meter’ to check for recent shark activity at their local beach on any given day.
“Shark spotting has given me everything,” says Patrick, or Rasta to his friends. He now has a driving license, his level 3 First Aid Certificate, has been put through an IT course and is now provided with a small beach front apartment. Next he will look to secure sponsorship to take his pilot’s licence to provide air cover and approach major surf brands to supply a jet ski for emergency water rescue.
Suddenly aware of all that he has earned from Shark Spotting he is quick to point out that it is not about the money or material gain. “I love this beach, it is my home and has given me everything,” he exclaims. “I want the surfers to feel safe again as the ocean has so much to offer, if I can do that then I will be happy.”
His radio beeps; he shakes my hand and takes off down the beach towards his hut, stopping to talk to several locals as they enter the water and waving to several more in the car park as they get changed. This really is his beach. This afternoon Rasta will help out at another of his projects, a local surf club providing boards to the underprivileged kids from the surrounding townships, two of whom now surf for Western Province. Rasta has high hopes that they will go on to compete at the highest level.
I now know that the black flag indicates that the spotters are operating under impaired visibility. I also know that impaired visibility is between 40-60%. In summer, when the green flag flies and visibility is good at 90-100%, there are 2 or 3 alarms per week. Now, with the black flag flying there hasn’t been a sighting for 2 months. Have the sharks gone or can we just not see them? Either way, Rasta assures me that we are in safe hands.
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