Crossing the Tideline

Ep 8 | Katie Thompson | Grief, Loss & Life After a Fatal Shark Attack | Crossing the Tideline

On Father's Day, September 5 2021, Tim Thompson was fatally attacked by a shark while surfing at Shelley Beach, Emerald Beach near Coffs Harbour. He was 31 years old. His partner Katie Thompson was at home, eight months pregnant with their daughter Elka. She found out through a link to an ABC news article her mum sent her. Katie talks about the morning Tim died, an ordinary Sunday they had spent at home talking about how different the following Father's Day would be. How the news reached her. What the first weeks looked like when the logistics of death gave her something to do, and what happened when they stopped. Raising a newborn alone while carrying grief that nobody around her had a reference point for. Writing letters to Tim and to Elka because she couldn't find a single resource that spoke to what she was going through. And how five years on, she has moved from surviving to something that feels closer to thriving, even as she watches Elka begin to grapple with growing up without her dad. Katie also speaks about the media handling of Tim's death, the Bite Club community and why she eventually decided to share her story publicly. Support a shark deterrant rebate in NSW. https://jyem13.github.io/nsw-shark-rebate/ [https://jyem13.github.io/nsw-shark-rebate/]

Ep 7 | Dan Webber | What the Science Isn't Telling You | Crossing the Tideline

Dan Webber is a journalist, surfer and longtime observer of the shark debate in Australia. He was in the water for two shark attacks during the Ballina cluster of 2014 and 2015, a two year period that saw twelve incidents across a 70km stretch of coastline between Evans Head and Byron Bay. Out of that experience he built the Ballina Shark Reports page, a real time community sighting tool that was running one shark report per day at its peak before the local mayor asked him to take it down. In the decade since, Dan has gone deep on the research. He's spoken at a Senate inquiry, written multiple academic pieces on shark mitigation technology, and contributed a chapter to an international book on the subject. His work sits in the top 1% of shark related articles on ResearchGate. He is not aligned with the mainstream scientific consensus on a number of issues, and he does not shy away from saying so. This conversation covers what it was actually like inside a community living through a cluster of attacks. How the media arrived, how the fear spread, and how a small group of surfers quietly kept paddling out and looking after each other. We also get into his views on shark nets and why he supports them when most others don't, his deep skepticism of smart drum lines, his theory on bold versus shy shark personalities, and his pointed criticism of what he sees as ideologically driven science that shapes policy in ways that don't serve ocean users.

Ep 6 | Senator Surfer | Shark Policy, Deterrents & Government Responsibility | Crossing the Tideline

Senator Peter Whish-Wilson has spent 14 years in Australian politics fighting for ocean and environmental protection. He's also a surfer and diver who uses deterrence himself, has had his own unannounced Great White encounters off the Tasmanian coast, and made the trip out to the Neptune Islands to observe deterrent testing firsthand. He's stepping away from the Senate mid-2026, and this conversation catches him at a moment of genuine reflection. Pete doesn't sit comfortably on either side of the debate and that's what makes him worth listening to. We get into why he thinks drum lines and shark nets give communities a false sense of security rather than actual protection. Why the genetic data on adult white shark populations doesn't necessarily line up with what people are feeling in the water. And why he believes both the fear and the frustration in coastal communities are completely rational, even when the policy responses aren't. We also talk about what governments can and can't realistically be asked to do, the difference between risk and perception of risk, and what he thinks ocean users themselves need to take more ownership of. He also shares a story from diving with Great Whites off South Africa that shifted something in how he sees them. Hard to explain. Worth hearing. A conversation that goes a lot of places. One of the more honest takes on the political side of all this I've had so far.

Ep 5 | Easkey Britton | Water, Healing & Our Relationship with the Ocean | Crossing the Tideline

Easkey Britton is an Irish surfer, marine social scientist, writer and ocean advocate who has spent her life studying the relationship between people and water. Born into a surfing family on the northwest coast of Ireland, she competed internationally from the age of twelve and has spent the decades since trying to understand what the ocean does to us, and for us, and what we owe it in return. This one is different to the others in the series. Sharks barely get a mention. But water is where people and sharks find each other, and Easkey has a way of talking about that relationship that gets to something the science and statistics rarely reach. We talk about what it means to have your identity shaped by the ocean, and what happens when that connection gets broken. The healing properties of water, physically and psychologically, and why restoring that relationship after trauma is not something you can think your way through. The complexity of holding love for the ocean alongside genuine fear of it. And why our culture's tendency to want black and white answers makes all of this so much harder than it needs to be. Brett also opens up about where he is in his own process of rebuilding trust with the water, and what Easkey's books Salt Water in the Blood and Ebb and Flow have given him during that. A slower, more reflective conversation. One that sits in the questions rather than rushing toward answers.

An Introduction to Crossing the Tideline

In 2023, Brett Burcher had a close encounter with a Great White Shark while surfing at his local beach in Forster, NSW. The entire incident was captured on drone, in clear blue water, from directly above. He was a new father with a three month old daughter at home. That moment became the catalyst for Crossing the Tideline, a podcast sitting right at the line where certainty gives way to unpredictability, and where most of us, despite the risks, keep choosing to step in. Right now it has never been a more complex time to be an ocean user in Australia. Sightings, encounters and near misses are common. Conflicting theories, limited data, sensationalism and reactionary commentary leave coastal communities feeling confused, scared and frustrated. The car park chats are happening everywhere. This podcast is a series of those conversations, with people who occupy those same car parks but who also spend a lot of time learning, researching, responding to and living with shark related risk. Brett speaks with shark attack survivors, families of fatal attack victims, scientists, conservationists, first responders, policymakers, First Nations custodians, swimmers, surfers, mitigation experts and community members from a range of countries, coastlines and communities. The goal is simple. Better information, clearer thinking, calmer responses. So we can all make more informed decisions in and around the ocean. Crossing the Tideline is also a companion to an observational documentary of the same name, currently in production with Stitch Films & Regen Studios. Distributed by Madman Entertainment.