Late last week, Sydney surfer Alex Hayes made a serious dent on the internet after posting a picture of a shark that he says swam right up under his paddle board, chill as can be, just to have a look around and say howdy.
His Instagram post proceeded to go viral as absolute balls, but as expected with such a high level of attention, plenty of people came out via the comments thread of PEDESTRIAN.TV’s original article to call bullshit on the image.
Suspicious parties linked to the following image of a great white shark from a South African website.
If you look at the shape of the shark in the above picture, and the way the light hits it, then compare it with the shark in Hayes’s Instagram post, the two do indeed bear a striking similarity.
We’ve since gotten in touch with Hayes, who says he never expected the photo to get half the attention it did, and admits that … yup, the whole thing was done just for a laugh.
“Ya got me, no harm done,” he told PEDESTRIAN earlier today. “It’s pretty funny. I didn’t really expect anything like this to happen so it was a bit of a surprise.”
“My good mate Alex Gray and I, we had a little play around with this photo of a shark and thought it was a bit obvious and uploaded it for a good laugh … Now I know what it feels like telling a kid that Santa Claus isn’t real.”
Hayes remains a committed fan of sharks, saying:
“In some seriousness, I’ve always loved sharks, and I always kick up a stink when I see people wanting to “cull the sharks” and that they are all
“man-eaters”, when it’s clearly their ocean and we are entering their home so we just have to respect that! Enjoy the ocean for what it is, always knowing the risk is there!”
Well-played, Hayes, well-played.
