Lots of barrels, bit of a crowd, no sharks.

"We're probably not going to do the yellow anymore," said Darren Handley of Mick Fanning's surfboards. "The fishos call it yummy yellow. When a boat goes down it's always the swimmers with yellow life jackets that sharks go for."

Without delay or even a seven second buffer, surfing fans almost saw the unimaginable happen right in front of their eyes. The effect of those thirty seconds will take a while to get over.

Footage of the incident, plus interviews with Mick and Julian Wilson, who was also in the water at the time.

The J-Bay Open has been called off following a dramatic incident that involved defending event winner Mick Fanning being attacked by a shark in the opening minutes of the Final against Julian Wilson.

“It feels like there are a lot of waves coming through but you kind of have to sift through all the garbage to find the little gems.” Ace Buchan summed up Round 4 in his post-heat interview.