Over the 50 plus years I've been surfing, I've had six encounters that I know of. My scariest was, like Keith's, a shark I didn't see. I was surfing Swabbieland alone one mid morning, with waves about 5 or 6 feet. The break is some 300 yards off the beach, with calm deeper water close to shore. I had been surfing for about 30 min's, when I started having a creepy ''I'm not alone'' feeling. While looking around , in an uneasy way, I felt a swirling in the water around my dangling feet, like when you are over shallow rocks that ''boil'' when a wave approaches. Only there was no approaching swell! It was dead calm. It was time to clear out! The worst part of the long paddle in, over the deep murky water near shore, was the last 30 yards to the beach. I was so close to safety, yet felt so vulnerable. Several years later I found out that the area is the domain of large Tiger Sharks. I'm still creeped out about it, some 40 years after the encounter.
cottons point last year
nice midweek day with about 6 people all spread out , i am waiting outside for the sets by myself. i see a big set on its way and start to go out farther , go over the first one and as the next wave starts to stand up ( 6 foot face ) i see what looks like a 15 footer swimming in it . i freeze up and the waves breaks on me , i realize i am alive then take the next one all the way in .
not fun !
I ran 55’ - 65’ sports fishing boats out of Half Moon Bay during the 70’s, saw many a blue shark, some tangled up in our gear, never a big white.
Flash forward to 1994. I’m out with a a younger friend in the early evening surfing a well offshore wave that breaks alongside a large chunk of exposed reef.
We’re waiting for a set, just talking, when a really large fin come out of the water
just about 25 yards away, straight out from us, followed by another big fin about 6’ behind
it. We suddenly realize we’re looking at the dorsal and tail fin of a
very big friggin white shark. Within moments we were standing on the exposed reef we had just jetted for, and watched this VW van sized behomoth
just cruise by and slowly submerge from sight.
The biggest blue I had ever seen up to that time had been about 10’ long, and that had been 75 miles offshore, where they tend to be bigger then the inshore blues in Norcal. The shark we were looking at was so much more massive it was hard to judge how long it was.
While this is going on, up on the cliff
above the beach, unknown to me at the time, having been just about to suit up and join us, my teenage son and a couple
of guys are watching this whole thing go down, clearly seeing the shark
in the water, which their calling 14’ - 16’ on.
We stood on that rock, heads pivoting 360’, saw no further sign of it during the next 20 mins, shook hands that if one
of us took the hit the other would help him ashore, jumped off the rock,
and made what is usually a 20 min paddle in about 10 of the longest,
slowest minutes you could imagine…paddling with every ounce of
strength we had, hands banging we were so close together, digging for
all we had. The beach never looked so good.
The next night, one of the guys who had been up on the
cliff, a long established local filmaker who has been documenting
Mavericks for decades now, calls up the house, tells my son when he
answers that he just got back from filming a really big white shark
demolishing a sea lion in the lineup we had been surfing the day before, at pretty much the same time of the evening. Tells my son the two of us should come over and see the
footage - I think my reply was something like “Is he nuts? I’m FU%^&*!
never going to watch that footage.”
The guy who was out with me that day left for HI two weeks later, been on Maui ever since.
I live in the red triangle as they call it and I have had about seven Great White shark experinces.
The best one was when we were sailing in Santa Cruz around the one mile buoy and a great white longer than the 18’ boat swam by.
The scariest one was when a seal got hit at Ocean Beach about 10 yards away from me. I saw a big dark flash about five ft. thick hit a seal in front of me and then a pool of blood about ten feet wide came up. I went into my full locust yoga pose hands and feet out of the water, caught one in and was done surfing for the day.
Another day we were surfing in Marin and my friend fell off his board. He said something large bumped into him. I thought well no big deal because I have been bumped by dolphins, sea otters, whales and even had a sealion lift me out of the water on it’s back. A few miutes later we saw a large fin heading away from us about 20 yds out!
I had a friend that got bit near Greyhound rock, he got to keep the tooth that they pulled out of his knee.
I have seen some big bite marks — as large as car doors on the elephant seals at Ano Nuevo. Makes you think twice about paddling out and I have been chase around by the 4,000 lb charging bull males a few times.
The only time I didn’t paddle out after seeing a shark was when we were checking the surf at Samon Creek near Bodega Bay and saw a seal get hit and struggle to get in with the help of some of its seal friends after about a 1/2 hr it was over and it didn’t end well.
I still think the drive to the beach is the most dangerous part of surfing.
Good times
i have no stories…but check this site regularly…i guess im courting my own story lol
http://www.sharkresearchcommittee.com/pacific_coast_shark_news.htm
sorry if this isn’t allowed…
I tried avoiding this thread, since like a lot of people, it creeps me out to think about. I watched Jaws and wished I hadn't, even 'tho it was a pretty ridiculous movie. Saw Soul Surfer the Bethany Hamilton story and loved it!
I used to free dive a lot, and never worried about it. For some reason, surfing always made me think about it more.
Only one time: surfing Ventura Overhead, about a quarter mile out to sea, just me and a friend - this was about 30 years ago. We see a fin and tail that obviously is not a dolphin, looked like about a 12' shark, based on what we saw. Not huge, but scary nonetheless.
We talked it over, and decided to head in. You feel pretty vulnerable when you're so far out there.
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BTW - someone mentioned the Mark Healy article in Surfer Mag. I saw that too, pretty amazing. Not sure I'd want him as my role model, but the guy has some serious cojones.
That Great White is far more interested in what is swimming in front of it that what is to the side of it, which is why someone should pull on it’s dorsal fin! That aside, I have had three encounters with sharks, two dead and one very much alive. First one was a tiny one, washed up on the beach where I usually surf.
The second one was also washed up, and I was on Ninety Mile beach at the time which is well known for Markos due to the seal colony up that way. This one was also dead which I was grateful for, as it was anything but small. The third one I did not see, but I did feel, as it brushed against my foot as it dangled in the water.
You can always tell that this is a shark by the sandpapery feel it has as a sharks skin is quite gritty. Then there’s the fact that this same gritty feel was very solid, not soft like sand and just rubbed against your foot.
I have spent the last 20 years surfing outer reefs mostly by myself in an area with a large seal colony… I have never seen a shark.
During Easter holidays in 1972, I paddled out at Lafitenia (well-known french point-break, south of Guéthary) with my friend J.P. (who sadly died in 1990 from a heart attack at a very young age). The water was cold, the sky was grey and the waves were in the 8 to 12 foot range, maybe a bit more. Not all-time conditions and we actually hesitated for a while before paddling out but since many people did, well, we just followed. After only a few waves and some rolling under big sets, we decided we didn’t feel like staying and we paddled in. After negociating a rather heavy shorebreak, we started walking up the beach to where we had left our gear and that’s when we noticed all the guys and girls sitting on the wall across the cliff, just underneath the camping ground, frenetically shouting and waving towels while gesturing towards the line-up. We ran up there and were greeted by a friend who said: “Hey, didn’t you see? There are two orcas circling around the line-up!” We took a look through a friend’s binoculars and yes, orcas they were, and pretty big at that. Two of them swimming right behind the surfers on the north point, two more playing through the waves on the south point. From the cliff, you could very easily see them but we never saw anything while we were in the water. That’s just incredible because the size of those saber-like dorsal fins was just huge. One by one, the guys who were still surfing came in and we watched in awe as those monster beasts just swam through 10 foot sets like they were 1 foot shorebreak… That lasted about half an hour, then all four orcas headed south together, towards Spain. In retrospect, you don’t feel quite good, even when people tell you that orcas “usually” don’t attack humans… It took us a few days before we went surfing again…
I see orcas here fairly often, but never near the shore or when i've been surfing. Those things are huge, i'd probably have a heart attack if i ever saw one in the line up! They seem to be "smart" enough to tell people from food, but i wouldn't want to test that theory.
Havn't had any shark encounters, knock on wood... Had baby grey whales breach next to me, that'll give you a scare! And plenty of angry sea lions- whatched a large one chase surfers down the line on a wave down south. Did this for probably half an hour, someone would catch a wave and it would follow them in and then swim out to the line up and go after the next one. Not sure if he was playing around or being aggressive, but it kept me out of the water!
I was mat surfing at beach break near Bodega Bay and had a little otter pop out on the wave face next to me and match me turn for turn all the way in. Pulled out when I did then followed me back out and around the line-up for awhile. Does that count?
Nuptial dance?
La Jolla is littered with these pests. I am doing my best at pest control.
Here's yesterdays chance of getting rid of the scurge of the sea. I give you the most dangerous shark in the ocean...........The Thresher.
This one did not meet my 300 lb requirement to kill (I have rules of engagement). This little guy went about 175.8932................I will get him next year.
repeal the MMPA now. Our soccer moms demand it!!
Seal Slayer 2000 w/200 hp johnnyrude / Seal Slayer F-250xl 460 w/side pipes.....and new paint job, and winch to pull shit.
That was my first thought but when I offered I got turned down flat. How humiliating, wearing my best neoprene too.
I do sympathize…
Probably my breath. Shoulda brushed before the sardines instead of after.
After the movie Jaws came out, a Half Moon Bay commercial fisherman named Mike McHenry decided he could make a few $$ out of the shark craze, so he laid out some nets off Martins Beach, known for having a few big prowlers offshore.
One morning, he found a big bastard in the nets, so he called Marine World, whom had agreed to buy a big one, and told them to meet him at the Pillar Point pier with a flatbed - and make it a long one.
I was the on duty harbormaster that day, got the call from Mike, so cleared the area around the dock winch so it could be winched up onto the pier.
Marine World shows up with a 20’ flat bed painted in tiger stripes, and the head honcho gets out wearing an Aussie bush hat pinned up on one side and an african safari shirt rolled up to show his dandy arm muscles, his personal photographer looking like an old fashioned news hound with a bunch of cameras hung around his neck…
Mike shows up with a huge beast tied alongside his boat, ties up to the pier, the winch sling is secured around Whitey, and they start to lift it up into the air so they can swing the shark over and onto the flat bed. The winch is rated at 5000#.
They get the shark halfway out of the water and the winch just starts to slip, the metal swing arm begins to bow out, and the frame begins to make threatening sounds. They finally plop the beast on top of the flabed, enormous head facing the rear. It tapes out at just over 16’ long.
So the Marine World stud jumps onto the back of the shark, throws a section of thick rope around the snout and flexs with all his might, dandy biceps popping veins, and manages to pull open the jaws to reveal rows of huge teeth. The photographer begins snapping pictures with a now large group of gawkers standing behind him.
And the shark suddenly spasms, flares it gills, and twists itself violently, throwing Studly into the air and onto the pier pavement. This from a beast that had been stuck in a net for hours, been shot in the head several times with a rifle as a safety precaution, and then towed backwards to the harbor.
You have never seen a crowd disperse so fast or so noisily, screaming and running for the hills. I was laughing so hard I was almost choking.
The next day the SF Chronicle had a picture of the shark, with Studly posing on the back, taken just moments before he got bucked…
Mike took 5 whites out of the area in a two week period, us surfers were loving it, than Fish and Game moved in and threatened harsh penalties, ending it. 5 years passed before another white was sighted in the general area, Mike having apparently cleaned out the resident population.
Howzit Bill, I have told this story before but here it is again, Was surfing Flat Rock at Hnalei Bay one afternoon with a couple of friends, and see a nice little 4' wave coming so I start paddling for it and catch it and ride all the way through the Bowl. As I ampaddling back out one of my friends kicks outofa wave and tells me good thing I caught that wave since a 10' Tiger poped up and was right behind me til I cauth the wave and surfed it for about 100 yards plus. Never saw him but the guy who told me has been a hawaii waterman for over 50 years and knows what a Tiger shark looks like. After that every onc in a while I would get those strange feelings but never let them chase me out of the water. Have seen a few other large Tigers but not as close as that one. Aloha,Kokua
over 45 years of surfing, i have several shark tales, but this is the most recent. Last friday(may 20th) i was surfing alone(hummm) at a local jetty near an inlet(hummm). around the tip of the jetty comes a fin about 6 inch high. thing comes straight toward me, and does two laps around me with fin and most of it’s back out of the water. about 5 feet long and a bit of girth to it. Swims away down toward two other surfers (stepson and friend), who later told me that they didn’t see it. Im too old and dumb so i didn’t leave the water. Keeping in mind what Ian Cairns once told me " don’t worry mate, they always bite the other guy", i felt safe till i remembered I was the other guy!..