I promised I'd update when we sailed Sultana Point, south of Edithburg. The sandbar looks like it goes for miles in a West-SW direction. The wind was almost straight South so we couldn't quite get upwind enough to make into the long reaches of sandy bottom. IF it had been SE we would have been reaching for very long distances! So we got restricted to sailing about 700m reaches back and forth about 50m offshore. We'd run into a seagrass area and gybe. Playing in the 2ft troughs, the tide was coming in. It was awesome to be in chest deep, warm water. 4.5m sails and really awesome except for having to clean off the seagrass every reach.
Anyway after an hour was doing that move where you head upwind as much as possible, bled off speed, and plop in to clean the fin and waterstart the other direction. Just as I'm steping off the board there is a freaking Bronzy 2m ahead of me, but I was already half into the water! He took off when the sail hit the water and I will admit I was scared thoroughly.
Once I got my brother on shore, we watched him for an hour, obviously chasing some fish (maybe salmon?) in the surf and coming into 2 ft deep water, thrashing about. Looking up the description it was a Bronzy and they are known for surf fishing.
As we were spooked and he was not leaving, after an hour we packed it up.
My friend who lives there says he's never seen a shark there in twenty years.
First time lucky I guess! Next stop Coffin Bay!
Kidding.
Scary but awesome to see up close I reckon!
The only place i've run into them up close is Coffin Bay! Once windsurfing (3 m bronzy) and once snapper fishing (big white) but that is over 25 year period and hell of a lot of hours on water!
Have you sailed Coffins before? SE predicted for later this week is not ideal for bay - off shore at long beach and holds tide out so doesn't fill in on shallows. Around in Kellidie is best bet in SE'ly.
I'm off water with ear infection but hope to be back on water at Tumby Bay later in week with good SE'ly seabreezes predicted.
Cheers
What a cool experience, such a rare occurrence to see a shark. Sailed Sultana pt once on a northerly and had a blast. Got told a story about a 10-12ft White swimming through the break at Fourth beach this summer while I was in Esperance recently. A young fella nearly landed a guscrew attempt on it. Obviously he was not aware of its presence!!
Saw the exact same thing at Black Point (near Ardossan) last year!
The shark I saw was close to the shore just like that one was in your pic.
Last I heard bronzys are vegetarians anyhow so we should be ok 
saw exactly the same thing at semaphore about 2yrs ago ... calm summer weekend morning and a huge shark was swimming past in 2ft of water ... a 4wd turned-up and followed it along the beach.
not sure if it was a bronze whaler but it was the same size.
Sail YP all my life, its not the shark you see that you have to worrie about, besides more chance getting run over by a car
than having fun sailing, largest shark Ive seen 19' half way between Ardrossan & Black Point
