The Hunting of the Beast of Eastern Beach

There is a perfect explanation for why I’m bare-assed, covered only with an unbuttoned army jacket, in my garage, at 12 am Wednesday night:

I’m deeply engaged in the hunting of the Beast of Eastern Beach!

There is a method behind my madness. And if not, at least there is an explanation.

Everything started a few days ago when the TV News got populated by fearful witnesses describing their encounter with the Beast.

A scary experience... for some.

A terrifying experience... for them.

People were shaken!

The Beach got closed.

Only I was as close as one can be... to Heaven.

Nothing could’ve elevated my spirit more than the news of its close presence, the Beast making me tingle with the adrenaline boost necessary for living at certain levels of existence. Those insane layers of reality that I love, granting me access to the high-roller table in the game I was built to experience and mess around with; a table reserved for the lunatics living beyond the limits of human comfort and control.

For some, of course, the game ends in "the ending.”

But that's OK, because that is what makes the game worth playing, building up accuracy in you, and in the end, making the play so generous in rewards, when not lethal.

And I mean real rewards, not money, but confidence and love for life, optimism, and intelligence.

Therefore, I was singing and preparing my hunting tools in outstanding good humor:

I was engaged in the hunting of the Beast of Eastern Beach!

Life was crazy again, and that was making it worth living.

My weapon of choice was, is, a 50 wide golden reel, loaded with 150 lbs braided line, ending in a set-up invented by “yours truly”, while learning from the lessons of quite a few sharks caught and especially of those that got away: the motherships.

My main problem was to get the monster on the beach and release it alive.

Doug, the other lunatic with whom, back at the beginning of the 2000s, I was pioneering this type of sport with - or better said this lunacy - was killing the sharks by using flying gaffs, ropes, and heavy winches... even his truck. He was an Australian hard-ass bastard ridding Aussie beaches of man-eaters, coarse and true as an arrow, but wrong - I understand that now.

I, on the other hand, was an intellectual bastard, so I was in the same game, but with a different approach for a different outcome.

I don’t like shark corpses while absolutely loving them alive.

In my eyes, sharks are impressively beautiful beasts.

Killers.

The attribute “beast” I use in the most appreciative way possible because nothing so dangerous and perfect in killing can be otherwise nominated. A lot of people are trying to romanticise sharks, so they can love them for what they are not.

Not me! I love them for exactly what they are: perfect killing machines.

I don’t need to make them into something they are not so I can emotionally engage them.

We have dolphins for that!

Furthermore, if the danger factor would've been nonexistent, people like me wouldn’t appreciate their value. Maybe Jordan Peterson is right, and we, the strong, are monsters, so we’ll love only our kind. Maybe.

I know my sharks.

I know what makes them tick, otherwise, I couldn’t catch them.

I have known and experienced them, from their teeth to their denticles covering their entire body, making them so abrasive it will remove at contact a fine layer of your skin, not deep enough to understand it first, but enough to see little drops of blood bobbling seldom on that patch of reddening skin. I call that a shark-rush – hurts like Hell when swimming again in the salty water of the Pacific. And that’s how dangerous their skin is. The whole rest is even more so.

What can I say, I bloody love them!

Their aesthetics reflect their physiological perfection, sanctioning a code that got it right ages ago… before dinosaurs’ failed attempt to greatness.

Sure, not quite Perfection, but something at that level on a not-so-perfect path.

That’s why our tango shouldn’t be ending in tragedy. Ever!

Therefore, to drag them alive in the shallows I use solid Big Game Fishing terminal tackle, so I can drag them to a photo session between the waves, where they appear to be landed, and pull them back in the drink right after, to terrorizing the depths again – if you see a reef bullied by them you understand what I’m talking about.

The hunt was on.

One of the witnesses said it was bigger than his boat. The Beast that is. Big enough to make them, and their boats, get out of the water.

Mind-bending thought.

The first day had no return.

The highlight was swimming my bait out a couple of hundred meters, mumbling the soundtrack from Jaws: “taaa-dam, taaadam! Ta-ta, ta-ta, da-da-daaa da-dam, da-dam…” so on and so forth, while on the shore, my wife was warned by a friendly neighbour - it's not far behind my house - of how the beach was closed due to bla-bla… boring stuff!

I saw the whole thing from afar, swimming, happy to dunk my balls in the vicinity of the Beast of Eastern Beach and feel the buzz of doing so.

I would not advise anybody to swim with half of a bleeding tuna in a water where sharks are in the vicinity. Not particularly wise, but such is bike riding, and I practice both with immense pleasure.

But that day there were no takes. No bites!

I pulled the bait out untouched after a few hours – the Beast was otherwise engaged.

Last night was different.

We got there at dawn, at the change of tide.

It was a low tide rising, so I walked through the shallows and then swam just a short distance, right where the channel following the beach was making a perfect shark alley.

We sat there waiting for a few hours, drinking from an L&P bottle where Raz made the best cocktail I’ve ever had the pleasure to drink: we called it in the spur of the moment ‘sharknight.’ That for good reasons, regarding the moment of its release and its sunset colour. Some mix of chestnut liqueur, rum, L&P, and freshly squeezed lemon juice. Outstanding! Raz is a cocktail genius, and that’s a given.

The night was cold and my over-the-knee cut Levi’s that I swam my bait out with, were not helping my situation. Luckily, I had the warmth of the alcohol running through my veins and the adrenaline of the anticipation.

While shivering a bit, I declared pompously that comfort is the killer of human existence, and the adversity in life should be enjoyed as thoroughly as the pleasurable moments.

‘We love spicy food and bitter taste, and that’s pain and discomfort.’ I said. ‘So, we should learn to enjoy stress too. What the Hell, people enjoy getting hooks through their nipples and hanging like that from the ceiling. Comfort kills Life!’

Sure, I don’t really get Sartre’s friend that he mentions in ‘The Words’, the one who was happy because he broke his leg… I broke my legs in too many places to find that shit enjoyable. But something is there, and should be observed!

At some point, we discovered how warm the water of the ocean was.

Magic night. Waves licking our feet, an empty beach, good alcohol… hunting for the Beast of the Eastern Beach. Right behind our houses. Nothing short of magic.

Then, the rod jumped into the water.

Trembling in anticipation I took it in my hands.

The angle of the line was shooting in a different direction from where was initially. Only a 45-degree difference, but at 300 meters away, the bait was moved quite a bit.

Hook-up!

Aaand… nothing.

I pulled an empty hook out of the waters of the Pacific.

The Beast was smart.

Smarter than me anyway, so it took my offering and got away scot-free.

Laughing like two kids, Raz and I were enjoying the hunt nonetheless: we had the first encounter with the Beast, and that should be enough for anybody to rejoice and consider life as a miracle to be thankful for.

And to top it up, tomorrow will be another day.

A day we’ll hunt for the Beast again.

The Beast of Eastern Beach.

But now, sitting bare-assed in the garage – I had to take off those bloody wet jeans feeling like wet concrete on my bollox – it would be difficult to explain to my kids if they would ever enter the garage, why am I in this particular attire, dreaming with my eyes open at the Beast of Eastern Beach.

See you tomorrow, Beast!