When a great white shark stole a flipper from freediver Callum Stewart, he felt terror, curiosity and a deep love for his family – all in the space of 30 seconds

The waves at Tasmania’s Shipstern Bluff are notoriously big. When she was 18, Lizzie Stokely faced them for the first time – and decided to surf them

The Cronulla riots drew an invisible border through Sydney. Though Mostafa Rachwani still feels their echo, the ocean is also a salve

The morning after moving to an idyllic inlet, Jasper Peach set out to explore. After wandering onto an unfamiliar beach, they started to get a sinking feeling

Two weeks after moving to Australia, Jacob Robbens and his partner Emma made the detectoring find of a lifetime on a busy Sydney beach

Although Zoya Patel spent most of her life in Australia, the ocean never felt safe. Then a summer break forced her out of her comfort zone and into the water

Visiting a billabong for a Sunday afternoon fishing session, Northern Territory MLA Bill Yan found himself stranded up a tree with a giant reptile glaring at him

Out of her group of beginner surfer friends, Gill Hutchison was by far the worst. She tried and failed, until the seemingly impossible happened

Marine biologist Jacinta Shackleton was snorkelling on holiday when she had the sighting of a lifetime, a rare and beautiful blanket octopus

Lifelong surfer Andrew McKenna has experienced his share of false alarms with fins – but he’d never seen a dolphin moving with such purpose

The day Feather Thompson farewelled her husband, she started seeing birds in the sky – he had always told her he’d come back as a sea eagle

Rough waters couldn’t slow Lynton Mortensen’s unprecedented attempt to swim around Lord Howe Island but things became interesting when inquisitive Galápagos whaler sharks showed up

After a breakup left her feeling flat, Mary Rose Madigan decided to embrace a new life in Maroubra, one swipe at a time

When Dr Robbie Tait and his dog went running on a Darwin beach, crocodiles were the concern. An oncoming storm, and the lightning that eventually struck him, didn’t stand out as potentially life-threatening

Banoffee threw one last party to send off the beach house of her childhood. As the sun rose, she knew she had a story to tell for years to come

An ocean bath looked like shelter on a high swell day. Then an almighty wave picked Gadia Zrihan and her daughter up, dragging them into open water

For a lovestruck teenage couple, there was one location above all that seemed beautiful, romantic, thrilling. But sand behaves differently in different situations

In 2001 at Brooms Head on the NSW north coast, Mark Butler paddled out for one last wave – and was attacked by a bull shark