Bonnie Hancock

The warnings were there.

I just didn't heed them.

So, yeah, we were paddling.

you know steep point again notorious it's it's great white shark territory a lot of the west australian coastline is sort of infamous for great whites um as the water gets you know warmer they actually still they're still around and they move between south africa and australia they've tracked them so big sharks and it was the end it was i was 80 kilometers into paddling

feeling really good, had my music in, my body was conditioned by this stage.

So I was feeling pretty good.

I was bopping along to a song and on the boat, there was always someone on Bonnie watch, someone watching me, keeping me safe.

And my crewmate Jamie started calling me into the boat.

At first, it was sort of a bit more of a relaxed gesture.

And I told him,

No, no, no, I've got a song playing.

I thought he was calling me in to eat something.

I thought I'll get there in a moment.

He stood up straight, started dramatically calling me into the boat and my stomach suddenly sunk.

I thought something's wrong here.

And so I sprinted up to the boat.

They said, get on right now.

And what they'd seen was the big fin of a great white, the jagged edges and everything, like something off jaws, come up right next to my ski, disappear and take a deep dive under.

They saw the shadow and just disappear.

And I'm there bopping along, telling them that I'm coming into the boat in a little bit.