Per the thread title, do you have a shark story, or experience? I've had several over the years, in Calif., Hawaii, and in the Caribbean. I'll tell some of mine a little later, but I'd like to read some of yours first. I think they are close to us far more frequently than we are aware of. Ever surfed alone at night? Ever had that spooky feeling of being stalked while in the water? If so, you know what I mean.
Hello Thrailkill,
I have never seen a shark in the water in about 20 years of surfing in Puerto Rico.
I have seen front-page pictures in th newspaper of 15 foot tigers fished out of waters where I surf regularly.
Once, about 11 years ago, in a very rainy morning with the river pouring out into the surfbreak, I was scared by a big creature I saw in the face of a set wave that hadn’t broken yet. It was just me and a buddy. We pointed it towards shore immediately. But, I cannot be sure that it was a shark. It did give me the shark-vibe, though.
The following was earlier in 2011:
But personally, I haven’t seen one up close and personal.
Cheers.
Castrillo, that one was caught last month outside "Snappers" that's a big mofo-kin tiger mon. It's kinda cruel to kill such a wonderful fish... Once I was working as a fishing mate on my friend's Hatteras 38" I was reeling in the lures while we were going in through "Las Cabezas de San Juan" in Fajardo, all of the sudden I see a big ass fin, about the size of a paint bucket going for a Rapala, I reeled it in and luckily it didn't bite, Captain Church was in the flying bridge and he saw the whole fish. He told me it was longer than the boat's transom which is about 11' ... Everytime I am the last one on the water at Ulu's I remember that fish...
Bill, Check out the new Surfer Magazine, theres an article on Mark Healey and shows pictures of him catching rides on some 20' White Shark's fin... that's got to be the craiziest mofo alive. Guy charges big waves for real too, he's one of my idols man! I believe he is truly ready to go to the other side whenever it calls... In the article it says that he was aware that the sharks were not aggresive so he went for it. Wow, talk about cool and trusting your knowledege and experience...
Let me preface by saying I've been surfing, fishing and diving since the 60's and have been across the Pacific and back twice so I've had plenty of water time and I know what's what in the ocean...
I had my first up close, in the water shark encounter just over a year ago at Secos.
It was a weekday and there was a light crowd competing for the waist high waves.
I was surfing my Fourth Gear Flyer and was the only person riding prone. I'd just gotten back out to the takeoff spot after catching a wave when I thought I saw a fin cut the water nearby.
I didn't think much of it until a few minutes later when I saw the entire first dorsal fin, the tip of the second and part of the tail fin slide by maybe 15 feet away. Close enough that I could see the copepods attached to the fin..... The first dorsal was at least 14" tall and the tail fin was several feet back from it. Obviously a large whitey.
I can never remember feeling so vulnerable before.
I asked a kid who was sitting between me and where I'd seen the shark "Did you see that?" and he said "What?" I replied "I just saw a large shark right there" and he said "yeah right".
I snagged the next wave and rode it to the beach and to be perfectly honest I was shaking in my booties..
Ever since then I have been more aware and a little skittish in the water; That being said, I know we are safer in the water then riding a bike or driving to the beach.
i grew up in santa cruz and surfed north of town a lot...but never saw shit. then of all places, i had one on Kodiak island AK. 50+ miles from town, nobody around. hadn't even caught a wave yet and a huge fin popped up no more than 10 yds from me. oh, to top it off, there was also a bunch of super-pissed wild horses on the beach. gnarly place
I have seen several big ones (including a large whitey at Waddell creek) but the creepiest encounter was with a shark I never really saw. Was surfing Lahilahi one afternoon and kept feeling “watched”. Lots of shadows in the water, things moving I saw only peripherally, and I was the only one out. Finally went in - too uncomfortable to have a good time. The next morning a woman was snorkeling there and a tiger bit her in the shoulder. A good sized one too, according to the lifeguards (they sent out boats and a chopper to spot it). She lost a lot of blood but apparently a tourniquet saved her from a bad ending. (It made the local news but not the networks…). Have not surfed there since…get chickenskin just thinking about it.
I’ve seen a few shark here in NJ. Some big some not. I always say that “If you’ve been in the water, you’ve been with sharks.”
Right now I have a good relationship with sharks. I don’t eat them when they are on land, and they don’t eat me when I m in the water. So far it’s been working perfect.
waddell can feel really creepy sometimes. i got a bad vibe once on a gray flat light day when the whales were just offshore. my uncle boogies the landslide bowls alone (on a red sponge) all the time. even when it's big. crazy guy. i've also seen lots of splashing and trashing aways out at ano. but for me personally, 3 mile always put the most bad thoughts in my head
You really want to hear about this? It'll take forever to type so I've copied an email I sent to a friend in Ca. Happened last fall here in FL.
" One of the trippiest days ever.
I'll try to tell it comprehensively but I haven't written this much in ages.
It will probably come out as a stream of consciousness type thing.
Got up with the sun, some of the Hurricane Igor swell has started coming in, riding my bike up the beach to the spot.
Wait, whats this pumpkin looking thing up at the high tide line? I stop pick it up, it's heavy, like 5 to 10lbs.
I had a sudden realization, this is a bail of weed!
Put it in my basket, covered it with my towel and rode on. The waves were good, so everything else had to wait. Besides, you know there's no
one up at the point anyway.
My mind is kind of spinning though. How much is this worth? Do I know anyone to sell it to? I'm definitely not telling
my wife. weed or coke? I'm going to Tahiti. etc...
Paddled out. Waves were fun, got a couple of rights and a left. Nothing great but it was a bit overhead and fairly clean
with no wind.
Waves were breaking waaaay outside, you know how it gets when there's some size, three sandbars working .... Outside,
mid bar and the inside.
So I'm just sitting there minding my own business, when I see a big fin going by, north to south. SHARK!
I'm out at dawn, by myself, at an inlet. Strike three. I know better but I do it all the time.
Fin was kinda big and brownish in color. Appeared to be a bonnett(buckethead) shark. They aren't usually aggressive so I
wasn't worried. Then it turned and started swimming directly towards me from about 10 meters away.
Can't really tell you what I was thinking at that point, my mind was going about a mile a minute. "Punch him in the nose"
We've all heard it a million times. "Nah, he'll never come that close" but there he was, coming straight for me. At a
good speed I should mention. When he was about 4 or 5 meters away I slid from sitting to a prone position. He was on
my right side.
The shark closed the space pretty fast, his fin now looked huge. Really it was only about a 5' or 6' shark.
"Hit him in the nose" I kept hearing in my head.
One problem, where is his nose? The water was the usual iced tea color , I could kinda make out his outline but hit him in
his nose? What if I miss?
At this point I had no choice he was about one meter away, I balled up my fist and swung. Hammerfist right on top of his
head.
Right now I'm going to impart some information that is always left out when someone says "punch him in the nose". Apparently
when a shark is punched in the head the go "Batshit crazy". He went straight up in the air, twisted left, right and then
left again. Remember he was about a foot away from me. His face flashed within inches of mine then his tail nearly hit me,
then we were face to face again before he went underwater.
"oh shit" The beach is a looooong way away. "Where did he go" "maybe he's gone" Nope.
He came up behind and slightly to my left about 10 feet away,swimming directly for me again.
At this point, for some reason I remembered I had about 5 pounds of weed in the basket of my bicycle. If I wasn't so
panicked I would have laughed. But there he was coming back at me. This time I didn't really have time or the angle to
get a good shot. He came up beside my left thigh as I was swinging my left fist at him. I missed by inches "Oh shit"
his mouth swung towards my hand and I felt his snout knock my forearm as I yanked it back out of the water.
Full panic mode now as he went under water again. The beach is that way and thats where I'm going. Period.
Fight of flight. I lost control and am in full flight mode. I paddled towards the beach and took about ten strokes
before I caught some wash. Each time I put one of my hands in the water I expected to lose it.
I rode that wave all the way to the beach and laid on the sand for about 5 minutes before I could even move."
A friend later told me that in the fall Bull sharks come into the inlet to give birth. May have been a Bull Shark?
Oh yeah, and I through the bail of weed in the garbage.
I grew up in Durban, South Africa and I've had some interesting experiences with our sharky friends!
On one particular occasion (which will be forever etched in my mind) a couple of mates and me were surfing near New Pier and we saw a large fin pop up about 20 meters away, cue shark siren. We paddled our bottoms back to shore as the lifeguards went out on the Jet Ski to chase it away from the bathing area. After 5 minutes we got back in the water, mostly because all the surfers had got out of the water and we thought we were 'tough'. Half an hour later the fishermen on the pier were shouting at us and the other surfers to get out as the shark was back, cue shark siren, again. We did not go back in the water that day. I spoke to a mate who chased the shark out the first time on the Jet Ski and he thought it was a whale shark due to the size of the dorsal (which he said was about a meter tall) however; it was not floppy like a whale shark. Turns out it was a HUGE White at 5+ meters long... oh, the ignorance of youth.
Since then I found out that even though Durban has shark nets, most of the sharks are caught on the INSIDE of the nets trying to get out! Now I live in the UK the most dangerous thing in the water are learner surfers, seals...and hypothermia.
Daz
Hey Grumpy, I surf at , I call it Sequit. I camp there every summer. I’ve never seen a shark there but I’m not surprised. I saw the biggest stingray i’ve ever seen one day right next to the rock. I’m going to say it had a wingspan bigger than 6 feet, more like 8 if that’s possible? I wasn’t scared but just in absolute awe as it slowly “flew” past. I’ve also seen big guitar fish there, so, yeah, there’s a lot of sea life there. Your story will make me just a little less giddy when the line up clears and I finally get the spot to myself on some late summer evening…
riddim how much of that weed did you smoke before you paddled out ??????? !!!!!!!!!!
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riddim how much of that weed did you smoke before you paddled out ??????? !!!!!!!!!!
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Wake and Bake? Nah, not me.
I know the story sounds like BS but it's the absolute truth. I can provide photos of half the story.
Never did get to Tahiti.
Get rid of the seals..make the sharks go away. We need to make the ocean safe for our childern. Nothing worse than a Soccer mom, hovering over her 10 year old with a new Lost CI disk riddler 6.0, with hyperfreak fins. Let her relax in her Chevy Tahoe FlexFuel (because she cares about the environment) where she belongs.
Nothing scarier than a charging 1200 lb Bull seal elephant with one bad eye, bad breath, and love on it's mind.
repeal the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1974 now...before it's too late!!
I was standing on the rocks at Manu Bay Raglan N.Z, it was about 4ft onshore and no one out so I’m about to rock off and this guy runs down to me yelling about a shark. I actually didn’t believe him but I went back up to the car park, I saw what I guess was a white pointer cause it was firgen big and moving really slowly, cruised right up the line up. Came pretty close to jumping in with it. Good memory to have surfing Raglan the next 3 days then the back beaches. N.Z is wild, I reckon there’s heaps of Whites over there.
elephant seals! oh how i HATE those floppy nose assholes! i've had a couple elephant seal situations. there's one beach north of SC the scientists call 'loser beach'. it's where the bulls that get run off the point by the alphas end up. they come down there a lot and sometimes have insane bloody fights on the beach. i've had one pop out of the water 5 ft away and go aggro!! in waist deep water none the less! another time i was taking off on a wave and felt the water move really weird under me. my buddy said a elephant was trying to charge me. fuck those things!
have also had a whale pop up right next to me in Washington. he looked friendly though. think it was a grey
I've got a few, but here's one from Mex. About '82 pulled up at Rio Nexpa, looked nice and glassy and no one out. My buddies and I waxed up and were walking up the point and this guy tells me about a big shark he and his buddies had just seen. I listened to him, but figured he was just messing with the new guy in town and took it with a grain of salt. Well, we hit the water, and I got washed down the point, but my buddy got right out. As I was paddling up the point, I see a huge torpedo. looked to be about 8' long or bigger in the face of a wave as it stood up, nice and backlit by the afternoon sun. As the wave broke, the "torpedo" sort of rolled and got a whole lot fatter, then I realized it was gigantic loggerhead turtle! Still don't know if those guys really saw a shark or if they just thought it was one like I did at first.
Sorry, wasn't really a shark story, but it got my heart pumping when it happened!
Fun thread… Surfing in Hawai’i,tigers are always on your mind,and turtles are all around you,sometimes have to push them away when they come up for air…Last winter,the life guard on jet ski comes up to me and signals to go in,tiger shark.Back in the parking lot, which is about fifteen feet above shore level,my friend asks me why I didn’t come in sooner.He thought I could see the shark,as it was only about 50 feet away from me,and munching on a turtle.At first,he thought it was a whale!!!
A couple of weeks later,another spot,good sized day,great conditions,only 3 of us out,about 1/3 mile off shore,huge tail fin,tiger,a stone’s throw away.As I am telling one of my friends about it,he tells me to shut up,doesn’t want to hear about it,and not to tell our other friend,or he’ll want to paddle in!So we stayed out a couple of hours longer.Next day,a friend is at that same spot on a stand up,the tiger comes and bangs his board!.A few days later,another friend goes out there on his kayak to do some spear fishing,never could get in the water,the presumably same tiger bangs his kayak,follows him all the way to shore.A few weeks later,a couple hundred yards up the same reef,across the mouth of the harbor’s entrance, a kid on boogie board gets bitten on the leg by a tiger! Haven’t gone back to that spot all winter!Probably will skip next winter too!
Surfing in Tahiti and her islands,reef sharks are always under you when you are in the pass,you learn not to look down there,and not to think about it,especially after you bailed your board so as not to get sucked so far back to the reef,and now you are swimming in the pass to go get your board in the lagoon… Over the years spear fishing,countless encounters, too many to write about here,but shark encounters while you are surfing are always scarier,you just feel so much more powerless. Aloha
Many years of shark fishing back in my charter captain days and the biggest blue shark I ever caught was accidently caught while flounder fishing about 600 yards from a crowded bathing beach on a summer weekend. After a 20 minute fight I got him to the side of the boat. He stretched from the center console to the transom of my 23 Mako. Released him.