Tom Rolls helped clear St Ouen’s Bay after a jewel shark sighting on Saturday morning, when RNLI lifeguards raised red flags and asked swimmers and surfers to leave the water. The bay reopened around an hour later, but the closure was the first time Jersey had shut a beach for that reason.
Tom Rolls and St Ouen’s Bay
Rolls, an RNLI lifeguard on duty at St Ouen’s Bay, said the first warning came in a call from a guard at Watersplash. "We got the call through from one of the guards at Watersplash, and he basically said that a shark had been spotted in the lineup," he said.
He said the alert sounded unbelievable at first. "Initially, we were like, ‘that’s a joke, you’re having us on here’. But then he was persistent. He said multiple sightings had been seen by members of the public."
The sighting came at around 10.40am on Saturday. The animal was described as dark grey and estimated at between 10ft and 12ft long, about 40 metres from the shoreline.
Nick on the water
Nick was already close enough to see the animal from his board. "Nick paddled right over it, and he said it looked definitely more like a shark than anything else," Rolls said. "He even said he kind of punched it as he was paddling, so it must have been really close to the surface."
Rolls added: "It was darkish grey, about 10 to 12 feet long, and then it swam away really quickly from under his board." The animal entered the bay from the west and headed south.
Supervisors closed the beach because the species could not immediately be identified. A rescue jet ski was launched to patrol the length of the bay for around half an hour, and one swimmer still in the water was towed back to the beach.
Jersey beach closure
Rolls said the response was unlike anything he had seen before. "Everyone was super calm about it," he said. "There were lots of surprised looks, obviously – us included – as it’s never happened before." He added: "It’s the first time in history that Jersey has closed the beach for a shark sighting."
He said the animal appeared similar to the type of shark that washed ashore in the east of the Island earlier this year, although it was not formally identified. That leaves the species as the one open point after the bay reopened and the red flags came down.
For swimmers and surfers, the practical change was immediate: clear the water when the red flags went up, and stay out until the bay reopened. What happened on Saturday shows the bay can be cleared quickly when a sighting is reported, even before the animal is identified.
