A surfer has shared the horror moment his surfboard drifted close to a woman’s dead body the evening before it was discovered on Bronte Beach.
Horrified locals found the woman’s decomposed body washed up on the popular Sydney beach in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
Police rushed to the northern end of Bronte Beach about 5.45am on Wednesday after a member of the public found the body.
Max Vemeer arrived at the beach around 9am on Wednesday for a morning surf when he saw the crime scene and made the terrifying realisation.
He had been enjoying the last light of the day with one other surfer when he saw an obscure figure beneath the water.
“It was hard to see, but the hair looked dark,” Mr Vemeer told the Daily Mail as he looked on in horror at the police tent on Wednesday morning.
“It looked like a woman and pieces of the skin looked like they were gone,” he said.
“It wasn’t nice to see. It was face down so I could see the back … It was naked so we thought it must be a dummy,” he added to explain why neither surfer called the police.
“We weren’t 100 per cent sure, so we didn’t call it in but it was floating towards the beach so we thought whatever it was would eventually wash ashore.”
The beach has been cordoned off as police investigate, with a police tent set up on the sand.
Officers have launched an investigation and the beach has been declared a crime scene.
Police are uncertain of the woman’s age but it is believed she is aged between her 20s and 30s.
Officers are now scouring through missing persons lists to try and identify her.
Investigators have said the body seemed to have been in the water for a long period of time.
The entire beach has been closed to the public.
Police are currently treating the woman’s death as not suspicious.
Horrified locals took to social media to question what was happening.
“Does anyone know what has happened at Bronte Beach this morning? There is a Police Rescue tent on the beach and the promenade and beach is cordoned off,” one woman wrote.
