Comment by brendoelfrendo
10 hours ago
I am way, waaaay more afraid of box jellyfish than I am about sharks in Australia's waters, though I'm sure that's an equally rare occurrence?
10 hours ago
I am way, waaaay more afraid of box jellyfish than I am about sharks in Australia's waters, though I'm sure that's an equally rare occurrence?
If you're a regular to the Australian beaches and headlines I visit you'll see a shark every week .. sometimes daily - and after five decades of swimming once a week if not daily you might get brushed up against once or twice - but it's unlikely you'll be bitten.
You will, however, almost certainly know or meet someone that can flash the scars of a bite.
Shark bites - rarer than the headlines make out.
_However_ shark behaviour may well be changing due to increased human waste changing ocean patterns: https://theconversation.com/4-shark-bites-in-48-hours-how-wh...
Jellyfish - seasonal and locational. There are areas where you just shouldn't go in the water for a couple of weeks. Nasty.
Melbourne's currently got a bloom of lion's mane jellyfish that'll leave a welt (tingly red strip on the skin) for a couple of days.
* https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-01-19/lions-mane-jellyfish-...
As far as sea misadventures go, easily the funniest thing I've seen (sorry, we're like that, laughing at danger) was a young kid surfing with a pod of dolphins getting fully pancaked by a breaching dolphin that cleared a wave top, made serious air, and landed smack centre on the kid and his board.
He (the kid) got winded pretty hard, did get his (damaged) board back, and was laughing about it afterwards.
The dolphin was not available for comment.
( Addendum: Dolphins being cheeky is more common than reported in W.Australia - here's one that did get captured on video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oa7dSv3NBB0 )