Ive seen a few beasties out there,
The latest and largest was a ray. definately an 'offshore' species that had swam in for a sunbake between fisho and possos in torquay.
the wing span had to be over 3 metres, in 4-5 ft of water (board had a 14inch fin on!)
I was praying there would be enough clearance and it wouldnt go me as I wasnt quite on the plane at the time.
Another beastie was the barwon river dolphin archie 2 years ago! He surfed off my bow wave for 30 seconds or so - that was awesome
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'Archie' entertained Red and myself a while back. Actually he scared the bejesus out of Red which was very funny at the time.
Due to the wind direction we had to walk the boards for a bit of a distance and because the channel drops off quite deep in close, Archie decided to swim under the boards as we walked them. Was pretty cool really.
Have also sailed over some big rays at Pt Henry.
Humpback whale decided to surface about 30 metres in front of me just a little way past the poles at Rye. It was the time when a small pod was reported entering Port Phillip. I jumped off my board not wanting to carve my signiture on its back with my fin.
I once saw a very large kitesurfer at Rye. I actually have respect for him getting out and about, it can't have been easy.
Often have 2 playful dophins follow me a little off Mornington Pier.
I sometimes get the odd sea bass jump in front of me, they can some times be 10 inches or so.
Other than that the odd seal pops up...............
it's just not the same here in southend essex.
Mentone Stingray - about a 1.5 m wingspan, freaked me out at the time. Apparently these buggers can jump out of the water when startled!
Back in the early 90s I was sailing at Gnotuk on a light win day on the old Bombora Big Toy and followed a pod of dolphins. The pod split in to 2 and swam away from each other for several minutes before joining up again. When they came together again they were breaching with several getting completely airborne. They swum up the coast and repeated this about 5 times. It is the only time I have seen this happen and have never been so close to dolphins in the wild doing jumps that I only thought happened in dolphin freak shows.
Down @ Area 45....
I came off at the end of the strip with Old Salty (Doug) following me. When I came up I could see a head in the water but no board or anything nearby. "How bizarre" I thought and called out Doug to see if he was OK. The bugger ignored me. "Rude pr%ck" I muttered and headed over towards him.
At that moment Doug sailed past me, travelling in the other direction. The head in the water was still there, now only about 5 metres away...except it was a seal!
If you've seen the state of Doug's sailing attire, you'd probably agree with me that its an easy mistake to make!
Very early start for a dawn session at Green Point 2 years ago - just walking into the water when a BIG seal popped up a couple of meters away. He looked at me, blinked, exhaled and vanished. Very cool.
No food in the bay for them. Except the seals.... so if I see them, then I know, its possible for the other things.... [}:)]
Surfing with a few guys at Cat Bay last summer, when one of the guys get a big "thump" on the bottom of his board.
We all sh@t ourselves. Then this seal pup popped its head out of the water, barked at us, caught a wave, and swam back out into Westernport.
A friend of mine has a 165lt Starboard Start. That is a beast. Its like sailing a double bed. A lot of fun though.
It should be written into the conditions of use for these forums that the word "Sh@rk" is never written in a post.
All offenders would be stripped of their windsurfing gear and forced to kite surf wearing a very small mankini the wrong way around.
I am with Flip - there is no shark (spoon).
I used to sail around Station Pier when the Spirit of Tassie used to depart. That thing's a beast - created a wind shadow that stretches for over a km. Apart from getting skunked as soon as you sailed into the shadow, you'd get a lovely waft of burnt bunker fuel.
Apart from that, a dolphin (which I initially thought was a s***k) came to check me out once.
One time I was sailing off the end of South rd Brighton,about a km off the beach,heading out and a big white turned up about 20m downwind and cruised along next to me for a while.
