Shark attacks are common enough to have become passé in Australia. Twenty years ago, they were front page news. These days, they rate barely a paragraph unless the victim dies.
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When a surfer was hit in the northern NSW town of Evan Heads a couple of days ago, I didn't even click the link. Another one? Wasn't there an attack a few weeks before? And a few weeks before that?
Who needs the head noise?
I already don't surf the entire western coast of Australia and, just recently, scratched the Byron Bay shire off my list.
Salvation from the spike of great white attacks is at hand, however, thanks to a West Australian-based company that has a 10-year plan to build wave pools around the country.
Wave Park Group was set up by a former investment banker and lawyer Andrew Ross after he bought the exclusive rights to use Wavegarden technology in Australia.
I already don't surf the entire western coast of Australia and, just recently, scratched the Byron Bay shire off my list.
Salvation from the spike of great white attacks is at hand, however, thanks to a West Australian-based company that has a 10-year plan to build wave pools around the country.
Wave Park Group was set up by a former investment banker and lawyer Andrew Ross after he bought the exclusive rights to use Wavegarden technology in Australia.
Wavegarden is the first of the commercial wave pool companies to actually have a working prototype and, as from Saturday, a park open to the public, in this case, northern Wales. Wavegarden is a Basque country-based company and is estimated to have spent 10 million Euros and 10 years developing the technology that has been sold to 22 facilities across the world.
Ross himself was on a one year sabbatical, had just turned 40, and was looking for some kind of inspiration for the next half of his working life. At some point, he decided he'd like to have a swing at a surfing-based business.
Ross saw the potential in the new generation of wave pools that were suddenly appearing, in theoretical form, everywhere. He had seen the Webber pool and got in touch with Greg Webber. Then Kelly Slater's "people."
When he was over in Europe, he swung by the Basque country to surf the Wavegarden lagoon, its testing pond. He got in and it was just one of those moments, he says.
Yallingup's Taj Burrow was surfing the right, Ross was surfing the left. He kicked out and told Wavegarden "I'm writing you a cheque. This is f****** amazing."
Ross, who has just been to three cities in three days, says he doesn't want to make any premature announcements, "because that leads to disappointment", and he's right, and won't until the first site is secured and the development approval has gone through whatever regional planning authority he's dealing with.
That said, "we'd be disappointed if we don't have something to people within 12 months, potentially quite a bit shorter than that," he says.
Shark-free, non-stop waves? Tell me that isn't a sell.
