Michel Bourez Attacked By Shark (Twice!) While Foiling, Lives To Tell The Tale
Turns out that giant death spike is quite useful in deterring shark bites.
One minute you’re soaring through a frictionless vacuum with a smile on your face and thighs quietly screaming, the next you’re confronting your own mortality and fighting off a peculiar ocean predator.
Sound familiar? Probably not, but it sums up Michel Bourez’s foiling experience today. Let’s get it straight from the Crimson Chin himself.
From Michel [sic]:
What an incredible day !Different emotions in just a few minutes .
I was doing a down wind from tahiti ( mahina ) to moorea(vaiare) when a hammer shark chased my foil and bite it. He broke the tail of my @signaturefoils so I could not keep going . Then I sat on my @firewiresurfboards and waved at my friends on the boat to come and pick me up.After 2-3 minutes by « myself » , I felt something was wrong so I looked around me and stayed in alert just in case the shark would come back again . I was right !
The 3-4 meters hammer shark came back again at me so I put my foil in between him and I to protect myself. He bite my foil for the second time realizing it was definitely not eatable and swam back away from me . The boat picked me up a few minutes after and I was safe .
15 minutes later I decided to go foil again and finished the race we had.
I felt like surfing at teahupoo when it’s 10-12 foot ! We know the risk to get hurt or even dying but the love of our sport is too strong. EVERY TIME I go foiling in the deep blue , I’ve seen hammers sharks cruising around so I know the risk since the beginning.The ocean is their world and I respect that ! No bad feelings at all ! He just owe me a new foil
Now for a few questions that I’ll mostly answer myself:
Does this constitute as a shark “attack” or merely an “encounter”, a la Mick Fanning?
For mine, it’s an attack because the shark bit Michel’s foil—which is a direct representation of his manhood—twice before deciding the juice wasn’t worth the carbon fiber squeeze.
What was the captain doing the whole time Michel was chilling in the water?
Fishing, changing the radio station, fixing himself a sandwich? Michel was literally, as we’ve agreed above, being attacked by a shark, and the best this person could do was five minutes in open water. I find this entirely unacceptable, unless it was roasted sweet potato sammy with chipotle salsa.
Do you think Michel went back out in the water for ‘Gram clout?
Is this even a question?
Anyway, we’re just glad that Michel lived to ride another day. It would be an ugly world without this mug in it.
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