April 11th

Hannah Mermaid from Byron Bay Artists (.com.au)

It’s easy to see, anecdotally, why Byron Bay has long been famous for being a hotspot of sexy people. Just walk down the street and try to keep from turning your head, it’s not easy. The place is filled with very spunky, young attractive people (like me).

So it was good news indeed to hear my suspicions confirmed by a recent highly scientific peer-reviewed survey from beautifulpeople.com listing Byron Bay as one of the “hottest” travel destinations on the planet. Ninth to be exact, beating out Sardinia, Italy (Take that Sardines!).

1. Bahia, Brazil;
2. Laguna, California;
3. Biarritz, France;
4. Florida, USA;
5. Cabo San Lucas, Mexico;
6. Ibiza, Spain;
7. Cape Verde;
8. Milano, Italy;
9. Byron Bay, Australia;
10. Sardinia, Italy.

April 5th

There I was, at the local tavern when a grizzly old sailor overheard me talking about the shark attack of ‘93 off Julian Rocks when he leans over and says to me “There’s more to it than that sonny, arrr.” and slammed his flaggon on the bar. “There’s something going on in them there waters…”

Ok so maybe I’m embellishing the telling a little, but there are a few local shark stories and this is one of them. A friend of mine told me about the terrible attack on John Ford in 1993 off Julian Rocks, where John and his newly wedded wife were diving. Seeing the approaching Great White Shark, John pushed his wife out of the way and was promptly eaten alive, never to be recovered. (Although some local rumours talk of pieces surfacing here and there).

Anyway that was a pretty amazing story by itself.. but as it turns out the last fatality in the area before that was another fella called… Martin Ford. Ok, weird.

I’m told the fatality before him is yet another Mr Ford, but I’ve yet to find that record. So if your surname is Ford, and you like swimming / surfing or diving at Byron Bay… I hope you are not superstitious! If anyone can tell me who the other Ford is and when, let me know in the comments.