{"id":21872,"date":"2025-09-14T12:47:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-14T12:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/21872\/"},"modified":"2025-09-14T12:47:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-14T12:47:08","slug":"friends-of-shark-attack-victim-return-to-the-water-to-confront-fear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/21872\/","title":{"rendered":"Friends of shark attack victim return to the water to &#8216;confront&#8217; fear"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Friends of the man killed in a shark attack on Sydney&#8217;s Northern Beaches last Saturday have returned to the scene a week on, to conquer their fears.<\/p>\n<p>He had been out for a morning surf with \ufeffseveral of his mates, who had tried to save him.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/https:\/\/prod.static9.net.au\/fs\/90366cb3-18a1-4207-9fd1-fa86ff8f6d40.jpeg\"   alt=\"Friends of the man killed in a shark attack in Sydney's Northern Beaches last week have returned to the scene to conquer their fear.\"\/>Friends of the man killed in a shark attack on Sydney&#8217;s Northern Beaches last Saturday have returned to the scene a week on, to conquer their fears. (Nine)<\/p>\n<p>A week after his September 6 death, his friends were back in the water to honour the 57-year-old.<\/p>\n<p>\ufeffPsillakis&#8217; sister was among those visiting today, while friend Toby Martin admitted to feeling scared to return.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But I think we&#8217;ve got to lean into the fear,&#8221; he told 9News.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;To confront what&#8217;s been presented to us in a place we go everyday. That&#8217;s what he would have wanted. That&#8217;s what we want for our community.&#8221; \ufeff<\/p>\n<p>A memorial has been set up on the beach, offering a place for healing for the community.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/https:\/\/prod.static9.net.au\/fs\/9bcbff31-026e-4c26-95f5-14b9e272300f.jpeg\"   alt=\"Mercury Psillakis and his wife Maria\"\/>Mercury Psillakis (left) died after suffering catastrophic injuries from what authorities believe to be a great white shark (Nine)<\/p>\n<p>Local receivers today pinged for sharks around Avalon and Palm Beach.<\/p>\n<p>The state had planned to remove shark nets at three spots in the Northern Beaches \u2014 which covers Dee Why \u2014 Waverley and Central Coast councils this summer to trial the effectiveness.<\/p>\n<p>Premier Chris Minns \ufeffhad said he would pause the trial until the Department of Primary Industries handed down its report on the shark attack, but days later, \ufeffAgriculture Minister \ufeffTara Moriarty confirmed the trial would be scrapped ahead of the report.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/https:\/\/prod.static9.net.au\/fs\/8166947c-9165-45f5-8f10-6487046d2ac0.jpeg\"   alt=\"Friends of the man killed in a shark attack in Sydney's Northern Beaches last week have returned to the scene to conquer their fear.\"\/>A memorial has been set up on the beach, offering a place for healing for the community. (Nine)<\/p>\n<p>Shark nets were reinstalled at 51 beaches from Newcastle to Wollongong on September 1.<\/p>\n<p>Dee Why beaches have 150-metre-long, six-metre-deep shark nets installed about 500 metres from the shore.<\/p>\n<p>Authorities have installed additional drumlines between Long Reef and Dee Why.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Friends of the man killed in a shark attack on Sydney&#8217;s Northern Beaches last Saturday have returned to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21873,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[111,139,69,147,406],"class_list":["post-21872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21872\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}