{"id":257361,"date":"2025-11-11T19:41:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-11T19:41:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/257361\/"},"modified":"2025-11-11T19:41:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-11T19:41:12","slug":"wa-windsurfer-escapes-with-bitten-board-after-great-white-shark-encounter-at-popular-surf-spot-western-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/257361\/","title":{"rendered":"WA windsurfer escapes with bitten board after great white shark encounter at popular surf spot | Western Australia"},"content":{"rendered":"

A windsurfer has come face to face with a suspected great white shark at a popular surf spot in Western Australia<\/a>, and walked away with a bitten board but otherwise unscathed.<\/p>\n

Andy McDonald was riding his hydrofoil board \u2013 a type of board with a wing attached, allowing surfers to hover above the water \u2013 at Bombie surf break near Margaret River at about 5.45pm on Monday evening with a group before he suddenly came crashing into the water.<\/p>\n

Footage uploaded to Swellnet showed the board being sucked beneath the surface followed by dramatic splashes of foamy water as a bird circled overhead.<\/p>\n

For McDonald, a seasoned 61-year-old surfer, adrenaline quickly kicked in.<\/p>\n

\u201cI fell on to it \u2026 and I was like, punching it,\u201d he said in a video shortly after the attack, uploaded by local news outlet the Augusta Margaret River Mail, in which he appeared shirtless and wrapped in a beach towel.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then I had my sail, and I jumped up on the sail just to get out of the water. And then I started screaming for help.\u201d<\/p>\n

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As luck would have it, his friend Matto was nearby and came over straight away. The pair spent about 15 minutes paddling back to shore, with Matto helping to push him.<\/p>\n

McDonald had no injuries, but a huge bite had been taken out of his board.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m good, I lived to tell the story,\u201d he laughed in the footage, hopping into his ute with his chomped board tied to the back. \u201cI don\u2019t think I\u2019ll sleep for a week.\u201d<\/p>\n

McDonald, who is originally from Melbourne, didn\u2019t get a look at the shark but estimated it was about three metres in length.<\/p>\n

Locals were quick to praise his courage, with one resident commenting on the Augusta Margaret River Mail Facebook page: \u201cOur handy Andy, a cat busy using up his nine lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re a legend mate,\u201d another wrote.<\/p>\n

The Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development issued a shark warning for Prevelly near Margaret River after the interaction was reported at around 6pm.<\/p>\n

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\u201cA reported white shark bit a foil board causing the rider to fall into the water. The rider was not injured,\u201d the alert read.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe rider was located between Boat Ramp Surfing Spot and Bombie Surfing Spot at the time of the interaction.\u201d<\/p>\n

It urged residents to follow beach closures and take additional precaution in the area as officers monitored the situation.<\/p>\n

There have been four fatalities from unprovoked shark bites in Australia this year, an increase on 2024 and 2023 but down from seven unprovoked fatal attacks in 2020<\/a>.<\/p>\n

According to the Australian Shark Incident Database<\/a>, maintained by Taronga Conservation Society Australia, there were 1,285 shark \u201cincidents\u201d between 1791 and June 2025.<\/p>\n

The long-term increase<\/a> in the number of shark bites has been attributed to more people using the water, climate change, habitat depletion and uptake of watersports.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A windsurfer has come face to face with a suspected great white shark at a popular surf spot…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":257362,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":{"0":"post-257361","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-uk","10":"tag-united-kingdom","11":"tag-unitedkingdom","12":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257361\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/257362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}