At Wylie’s Baths in Sydney’s east, the blue and yellow-ringed upper deck has never been busier.
On the concrete below, towels are crowded together. In the water, regular lap swimmers have to contend with an onslaught of first-timers.
People across Sydney have flocked to netted swimming areas and ocean pools in recent weeks after four shark attacks in 48 hours in New South Wales waters.
On Sunday of the Australia Day long weekend, staff at Wylie’s had to do something they’ve never done before – tell people they couldn’t enter the 120-year-old baths for a swim.
“We had to physically cap the numbers coming in,” day manager Marie Sullivan says.
“There’s never been a cap at Wylie’s. People were lining up even when I was stopping others, saying we’re over capacity. It was people on top of people. It was crazy.”
Sharks are still on people’s minds.
Julie Hill, an avid ocean swimmer who has lived in the area for 30 years, usually spends her Sunday mornings swimming across nearby Coogee Bay in open water.
But “we haven’t done that since the shark attacks,” Hill, in her late 60s, says.
“There are quite a few of these groups that swim in the morning, and I’ve noticed, particularly on the weekend, they’re not there.”
Darina Lupinkova, the manager of Wylie’s Baths, says there was an immediate uptick in people paying the $6.50 entrance fee after the first shark attack.
“We are definitely busier,” Lupinkova says. She notes singer Nick Cave may have added to the crush when he raved about his love of Wylie’s in front of a crowd of thousands during a concert at The Domain in January.
Lupinkova has worked at Wylie’s for 14 years, and those on the board have been there longer still. No one recalls numbers being capped.
Councils across Sydney say it’s difficult to quantify the increased use of netted areas or ocean pools. Many are unpatrolled and free, meaning there’s only anecdotal reports regarding patronage.
Mosman council says the enclosed Balmoral baths, a netted swimming spot, is always popular. But officials had noticed a “small increase” in inquiries about the baths along with those at Clifton Gardens at Chowder Bay.
On the last Saturday in January, as temperatures nudged 30C, a line at Dawn Fraser Baths in Balmain stretched past the front desk and up the stairs. One patron waiting in the queue insisted, “it’s because of the sharks”.
Woollahra council said this week it hadn’t noticed an increase in visitors at Murray Rose Pool at Redleaf beach, but acknowledged enclosed swimming spots were “always busy” during summer.
The council is considering a new enclosed area at Yarranabbe park in Darling Point, although that process began before the recent spate of shark attacks.
The Inner West council is preparing to start work on tidal baths at Callan park which are due to be completed in early 2027.
Seb Cook, 21, lives on the northern beaches but travelled to Redleaf this week because of the recent shark activity.
“I feel like people always know there are sharks, but there’s never really been this many in such a short period. So I think people are a bit spooked this summer,” he says.
“I’ve never thought about sharks really, ever, but then this summer, I haven’t really been going to the beach much.”
Eve McLeish, 21, lives near Nielsen park. Nico Antic, 12, was fatally attacked by a shark nearby while jumping off rocks into Sydney Harbour with friends.
“I haven’t swum in the ocean for a few weeks since then,” McLeish says at Redleaf. “I really love going to Bondi and Bronte, but I don’t want to swim there. That’s why we’re here today.”
Chris Pepin-Neff, a shark policy expert and associate professor at the University of Sydney, says it’s difficult to track beach usage after shark attacks.
Many don’t have visitor data. But the data that is available suggests that while swimmers may take a break after a shark incident, after about two weeks, behaviour starts returning to normal.
Pepin-Neff says the recent spate of shark attacks was “extraordinary”
“The picture that you see when someone says ‘shark attack’ is the scene from Jaws,” Pepin-Neff says. “When you cluster those together … that creates a completely different psychological profile that a community has to grapple with.”
But looking at each event separately makes a difference. Of the four encounters in January, two didn’t result in serious injury.
The NSW government has announced a $4.2m boost in funding for drone surveillance, increased tagging of bull sharks and shark-listening stations in Sydney Harbour.
Sarah Joyce, the executive director of the Sydney Coastal Councils Group, which advocates for nine councils with collective coastlines of nearly 600km, says a collaborative approach to shark safety in the harbour is needed.
Local officials are left to deal with safety messaging piecemeal, because the state government “isn’t very good” at coordinating with councils, she says.
Netted swimming spots and ocean pools are the responsibility of individual councils, the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service or the Sydney Harbour Trust.
The state government has been focused on mitigation efforts on coastal beaches, but Sydney Harbour hasn’t been afforded that same attention, Joyce says.
“This is all kind of new and everyone’s grappling with it,” she says.
“It does reinforce the need for a collaborative approach for managing sharks and swimming, which is only going to become more popular as climate change happens.”
This week, as temperatures climbed above 30C again, more people ventured beyond the nets and pools.
“The shark threat is not putting me off going in the water,” Jocelyn Edmunds, 31, says this week. “Statistically, it’s incredibly unlikely for the average person. You’re in the water for what, 10 minutes?”
Back at Wylie’s Baths in Coogee, Hill is thinking of restarting her swims across the beach this weekend after her midsummer hiatus.
“I am thinking this Sunday,” she says. “I will think about going down and doing another big swim. I’m trying to psych myself up.”
