coorong

Not sure about further down the coorong, I would imagine the dunes would be big enough to keep the wind off it, maybe look at the Murray Mouth, place called Sugars Beach, but with the flood waters charging through there and a ban on cockling and fishing could be a good place to avoid.

If you are into the flat stuff, check out Milang, I think anything with south in it is good to sail, also Boggy Lake,

We usually sail Sellicks, Seacliff, Kent reserve, Seaford, Days St and Semaphore,

You at Seacliff? so jealous!

Never seen a shark whilst windsurfing,

Kent reserve is good SE and SW,

PS: Slim Jim sails Ezzy sails, so you will not be alone there,

Hi RudyForest,

Welcome to SA - I'm a Seacliiff local, I'll look for you on the water. I have a 19 on my sail.

I own a SharkShield, which I wear snorkelling along the cliffs at Marino. There is a lot of crap on the internet about these products - I feel sorry for the SA company that makes them. I saw a shark expert show on TV the other night - he demonstrated it by wrapping the antenna in coils around a big fish. Totally not how it works, RTFM. Luckily it kept the sharks from eating the fish, and the shark ripped the fish to bits once the device was removed. But another bit of junk science for TV. I think the evidence they reduce risk is good, and it's against the laws of physics for them to attract sharks from a distance.

Having said that, I tried it on a windsurfer once (it's the dive model that wraps around your calf), and it's more trouble than it is worth. The antenna flaps around behind you, will touch your back leg on at least one tack, and gets tangled in a crash. PM me if you want to have a look at it and try it out. But in the end, I rate windsurfing as low risk activity so it's not worth sweating over.

Regards, Richard

This is a bloody interesting topic . I mate lent me a DVD called "Face to Face". It's a doco about great whites in Gulf of Vincent and Spencer. I learnt of a shark sensory system called the "Ampullae of Lorenzini".

The Ampullae of Lorenzini is a bunch of electric field detectors located on the sharks nose. They are used for a few things, but one of them is to detect electric fields produced by muscle movement (ie: heart). Here is an overview:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ampullae_of_Lorenzini

Basically the system detects DC or very slow changing electric fields by performing a voltage measurement across it's sensors. DC electric field energy being what it is, it will be localised - short range. These sensors are very sensitive. 5 nano volts (1 divided by 5 000 000 000) per centi metre according to the above source. That's a very sensitive multimeter !. This begs the question. How short is short ? - I'm still reading

Hi Jason,

Assuming Seaworld are a reliable source of information:

http://www.seaworld.org/infobooks/Sharks&Rays/senses.html

The sharks senses seem to be:
long range: smell
medium range: vibration
close range : eye sight
really close range: electric fields (the sense that gets swamped by the Shark Shield)

The Ampullae of Lorenzeni have the problem that electric fields drop off with the inverse of distance squared so they get weak very quickly as you move away. But you're the engineer, you might like to correct me on that one.

Cheers, Richard

ive spent a lot off time in SA coastal waters "20yrs" and have been approached by a BIG Hammer head off Goolwa, and a few other wired creatures, but there's one place that gives me the “nervous shark feeling” that's North Haven for some reason.......

I don't know about the effectiveness of Shark Shield - it is belived that this man wore it when he was eaten.

www.abc.net.au/news/2011-02-21/no-remains-found-from-shark-victim/1951028

particularly read this part:
------------------------------------
Police are investigating if Mr Clarkson was wearing a shark shield safety device at the time of the attack. It emits an electrical wave to deter sharks.

The victim's friend Don Morrison has no doubt.

"I guarantee he would have been wearing it. I think he checked it was working all the time. I'm pretty sure he would have been wearing it," he said.
-------------------------------------

apparently he also wrote in his forum that he was always wearing it when diving.

Of course, since his body was never recovered there is no 100% proof, but somehow I doubt he would have just forgotten to put it on that one time.

However - the good news for those who worry about sharks - there are none at Boggy and Milang!!!