Pittwater Life April 2024 Issue

Times Past
Shark in shallows at Avalon
Fortunately for the future
of both sharks and surfers,
there have been few
confrontations between the
two locally; although one
such incident occurred at
Avalon Beach in March 1951.
When on patrol, Avalon
Beach Surf Life Saving
members noticed a shark
swimming dangerously close
to a group of children in onemetre-deep
water.
Ken Davidson, a 23-yearold
local known to all and
sundry as ‘Davo’, was the
first to respond and grabbed
his surfboard (known as a
‘toothpick’ before the ‘mal’
came along) and paddled out
the short distance to the area.
After sounding the shark
alarm, other club members
jumped to Ken’s aid.
“I thought it much smaller
than it really was. I dived
into the shallow water and
grabbed the shark by the tail”
said Ken. Unsurprisingly, the
shark did a U-turn and took a
bite in retaliation.
In previous weeks Ken
had been fishing around the
rocks near the pool and had
caught several Port Jackson
sharks. Ken remarked that
they were solid and if you
held them close to the tail,
they could only bend their
bodies in a small arc – but
not so this carpet shark.
Ken later recalled: “When
the shark swung around to
attack me, its lower teeth
caught in my webbing belt,
POOR SHARK: Ken Davies with the Wobbegong/carpet shark in 1951.
luckily. If they had not it
could have given me a far
more vicious bite.”
His brother Neil was one
of the first on the scene and
arrived with a spear gun but
the first shot bent the arrow
when it struck the shark. Neil
swapped the spear gun for a
so-called ‘shark spear’ from
the clubhouse and drove it
twice into the shark, killing it
almost instantly.
The shark was then hauled
onto the beach.
Clubmates took Ken to
Narrabeen where a doctor put
three stitches in the wound.
The shark was later classified
as a ‘carpet shark’, so
named because many of the
species have a mottled skin
closely resembling ornately
patterned carpets. They are
also called by the more common
name of ‘wobbegong’.
This one must have been
the granddaddy of them all
and eaten his fair share of
molluscs and crustaceans
over the years because carpet
sharks normally only reach
one metre but the newspaper
photo shows it had almost
reached double that length.
TIMES PAST is supplied by
local historian and President
of the Avalon Beach
Historical Society GEOFF
SEARL. Visit the Society’s
showroom in Bowling Green
Lane, Avalon Beach.
Times Past
The Local Voice Since 1991
APRIL 2024 65