Don't go swimming in these waters unless you want to get attacked by a shark.
Beautiful coastlines, sandy beaches and crystal blue waters make for nature's perfect swimming pool. But do you know that Australia is regarded as the second worst country after the US for shark attacks?
Down Under saw a total of 19 shark attack incidents last year, recorded the Shark Research Institute (Australia). (www.shark.org.au)
SUMMER SHARK SCARE Aussies take fright after recent series of close encounters
By Roger Maynard
Australia Correspondent in Sydney
The Straits Times, December 20, 2007
FEAR of a summer of shark attacks is haunting Australians after a recent spate of close encounters sent an ominous warning to bathers.
A surfer who was bitten on Tuesday was recovering in a New South Wales hospital yesterday - one of several victims who have fallen foul of marauding sets of jaws cruising along the Australian coastline in recent months.
Port Stephens
Mr Ben Morcom, 31, was surfing near Port Stephens, north of Sydney, when he was bitten by a shark. He suffered deep wounds to his buttocks - an injury described by paramedics as a semi-circular, 20cm- long series of punctures similar in shape to a large jaw.
Mr Morcom has his friends to thank for his escape. Two of them began frantically splashing in the water to scare off the shark, allowing the injured man to make his way to shore.
Last weekend, Mr Scott Wright was swimming at Sydney's world famous Bondi Beach when a shark bit him on the arm, the first attack of its kind in that area in 70 years.
The 34-year-old Tasmanian was left with deep gouges in his arm.
The two incidents are the latest in a number of attacks this year. Together with record shark sightings in the Newcastle area, where Tuesday's attack occurred, they have sparked fears of the danger that bathers Down Under could be facing in coming months.
Mr Steve Bassick, who runs aerial shark-spotting tours in the Newcastle area, claims to have seen as many as 28 great white pointers on one trip.
But lifeguards say that while sharks are often seen in deeper waters offshore at this time of year, they rarely make it through protective net barriers to threaten swimmers nearer to shore.
Last month, two teenage girls had to seek refuge on a shipwreck when they were menaced by a shark off Byron Bay in New South Wales.
Bondi beach
In June, a schoolboy needed more than 100 stitches when he was attacked by a shark at another New South Wales beach.
More curiously, a fortnight ago, there was an extraordinary case of a shark which ate a kangaroo as it was swimming off the coast of Victoria.
Shark attacks represent a primeval fear which goes to the very heart of the Australian psyche. Spotter planes patrol the coastline in search of tell-tale fins. Underwater nets attempt to keep them away from beaches.
And warning sirens are guaranteed to clear the sea of bathers in seconds if lifeguards see anything suspicious in the water.
Part of the problem may be the growing shark population.
There was a time when great whites were an endangered species, but recent government legislation has reversed their declining numbers.
They are now a protected species. Fishermen who kill a great white or a grey nurse shark face a fine equivalent to nearly S$63,000.
No one knows for sure how many potentially man-eating sharks live in Australian waters, and the country is the second-worst in the world for shark attacks after the United States.
In 2005 there were 10 attacks in Australia, two of them fatal. But that was an exceptional year. There were six last year.
Such statistics will be of little comfort to Mr Morcom, whose bitten bottom may have scuttled his plans to attend a friend's wedding this weekend.
