If anyone needed to be persuaded that the state government’s Surf Safe shark awareness and education program, supported here by the Noosa Biosphere Foundation, is an important one, this drone image shot 100 metres off Castaways Beach last week might help.
Shot by visiting German clinical psychologist Stephan Neuwerk, the still image and video show feverish marine activity around the bait ball, including the presence of what appears to be a tiger shark and a bull shark centre and circling.
Stephan, who is waiting for his visa before starting a new job in Newcastle, was enjoying an early morning surf at Castaways alongside surf coach and president of Noosa World Surfing Reserve Kirra Molnar when they saw marine activity intensify just beyond the lineup and paddled in. That same morning bait ball activity and shark sightings were reported at Noosa West Beach and Teewah. Stephan launched his drone and got the money shot.
Says Kirra: “Sharks share our Noosa waters and we need to respect that. This time of year bait balls are out and about so we’ve seen some solid fish action. It’s a reminder to all water users to be smart, stay safe and look out for your fellow surfers when heading out in the line-up.”
Vale Walshie
Although he was a true titan of Australian television (the man who turned Neighbours into a global phenom) and sports events (the man who put Tina Turner into rugby league’s Simply The Best campaign), Brian Walsh was less well known in surfing circles than he deserved.
Walshie, who died this week at 68, was the creative force behind Foxtel from its beginnings in 1995, but long before that he was a grom from the suburbs, not quite a surfer but a confident kid who fell in love with the culture and, through persistence and precocious talent as a promoter, became an important part of it.
I first met Walshie when he did an internship at Tracks in the mid-1970s while finishing a communications degree. He was an infectiously positive presence, full of good ideas, and we loved having him around. But he didn’t last long. When Jack McCoy and Dick Hoole finished their first surf feature, Tubular Swells, they snapped him up to roadshow and promote the hell out of it around Australia. Having done the same tough gig for another filmmaker, I could only drool over Walshie’s ability to get every newspaper and radio station in every coastal town to do his bidding.
In 1978, my colleague at Tracks, Paul Holmes took over the running of the Coca Cola 2SM Surfabout, then the richest pro event in the world, and on the back of his success with Tubular Swells, the radio station hired Walshie as publicist.
Paul said this week: “He did such a fantastic job that 2SM hired him full time, and he went on to an amazing career, a legit media mogul.”
But Brian Walsh never acted like a media mogul. He was a sweet guy and, as a boss, a gentle persuader rather than a classroom bully.
When I moved to Queensland in 1990, I lost touch with Walshie on a personal level, although I saw plenty of pictures of him with the stars of the day (Kylie, Guy, Tina et al). At Foxtel he seemed to flow effortlessly from one role to another, and when I started working on live sportscasts from 1998, our paths would cross again. In fact I was working on the Foxtel crew at the London Olympics in 2012 when the boss, Walshie, turned up with an ailing Molly Meldrum on his arm. (Molly had nearly died after falling off a ladder.) Walshie came running across the room at the elaborate welcome party for the crew.
“Can you look after Molly while I take a conference call?” he asked.
Sure, I said, but what do you want me to do with him?
“Just make sure he doesn’t climb any ladders!” And Walshie was off, moving across the floor like an ice skater, in that way he had.
In 2015 he phoned me and said he was coming to Noosa and wanted to buy me lunch.
“I want to do something on surfing,” he said.
“Have a think about it.”
As it happened I’d been watching my good friend Bill Wallace get frailer by the day, while Scotty Dillon was simply getting stranger. I wanted to tell the stories of the pioneer Brookvale boardbuilders while they were still with us, and the clock was running. I sat down and wrote a one-page pitch.
At the lunch we talked about anything but. Walshie was a very entertaining fellow, and generous with the wine. Halfway through the second bottle I needed to excuse myself. As I got up, I pulled the pitch out of my pocket and said, “Take a quick look at this while I have a leak.”
When I got back to the table he was beaming!
“I love it! This has got so much heart. We’re in, 100 per cent. When can you start?”
At Foxtel Studios in Sydney a week or so later the top execs and producers were telling me, “No one gets 100 per cent funding, doesn’t happen.”
But Walshie made it happen. And when it came time to launch Men of Wood and Foam, he didn’t hold back. On a glittering night at the historic Freshwater Surf Club, we introduced the Brookvale Six to the television world and celebrated them in tributes cut from our film, then Little Pattie joined The Band of Frequencies on a makeshift stage out the back and we stomped the night away.
That was typical Brian Walsh. All heart. He will be missed.
FOOTNOTE: This column’s favourite surf shooter Fenna De King was on the sand at Agnes Water last week for the Aggie Longboard Classic and shot these colourful images of the midweek pro events. On Sunday the action moved to quality waves on the point, where a certain NT surf columnist took out the blue riband Over 70s division.
