surfing shark

by Mander
(P.S.L., Fl.)

I am a female and have been surfing for many years, I live in Florida, beautiful, sunny, small waved Florida! =]. The first time I ever saw a shark was probably the best day of everyone else in the waters life. I remember seeing it in the wave, like a movie, and immediately start paddleing, I actually caught the wave, stood up, and screamed "SHARK" the entire way to shore.

My friend on the other hand, was like Jesus walking on water, by the time I stood up and looked forwards towards the shore he was already there, everyone else in the water did not move and laughed hysterically, apparently it was a non aggressive spinner shark, and apparently they eat small bait.

I now can tell the difference between many different species of sharks.

Shark Fin in the Sinking Sun

by Chris Edwards
(Pacifica, CA)

I was surfing Ocean Beach outside downtown San Francisco last February. It was a day that would change my perspective of surfing California forever. It was a sunny warm day, offshore winds, practically perfect 4-6 foot waves. I was surfing the southern end of the beach near Sloat st. and it was getting dark slowly as the sun was going down.

As I sat waiting for the next set, I saw a large triangular fin skim across the surface of the water. At first I thought nothing of it, because I had seen dolphins in the area a lot that winter. However, when the fin reappeared and seemed to be floating horizontally across the surface, I knew that it was no dolphin. It was a great white. I screamed to a guy about 75 yards from me and yelled that I had just seen a shark. He laughed thinking I was joking. At that point i started paddling my ass into the beach as fast as i could.
When I reached the beach I was breathing real hard and my heart was beating rapidly.

I sat on the beach for a long time and watched the sun go down. I saw the guy who I had warned about the shark, but he still thought i was joking when I asked him if he saw it. He didn't believe me and most people I tell that story to don't, but it spooked me. When I surf now there is not a single session where I don't think about a great white. I consider it a blessing that I'm still alive and that I wasn't attacked. Every surf session since then has been more worthwhile than ever and I'm having a blast. Just shows that you must enjoy life while you can and appreciate the natural world around us.

Shark Story - Freediver/Spearfishing Mossbeach mid 1990's

by Vince Grimaldi
(San Jose, Ca.)

Three of us headed out of Mossbeach just north of Famous Maverick's to dive for abalone and spearfish. Other two dive buddies had their limit of 4 abalone then, and I still needed one to fill out.

They headed south of where we launched paddleboards from me in 30-40 feet of water 400 yards offshore. There lies at reef that comes up to a tabletop about the size of a house lot with nice cracks on sides. The bottom is covered with jumbled rocks and reef usually yields to half dozen really good quality rockfish and lingcod.

That day there was a thermocline in the water and the top 15 feet were clear with 20 feet very murky and bottom 5-10 feet clear. I had just ended a free dive and buddy had shot a small lingcod behind me. It was bleeding a little and current ran north to south.

A few seconds later I felt a vibrational whoosh as I had my face in water breathing thru a snorkel recovering from last 40 foot dive. I then felt another whoosh and thought that felt odd. Then I saw what looked like a ball of bait coming out of murky thermocline heading toward me from below and behind. As the figure got closer it rotated on its side and I could see a lateral line and an eye and teeth!!! It was a 12 foot female great white.The whoosh was the swish of the tail underwater. The fish could see that I was looking at it and I turned toward it and it veered off to the side, cutting me off toward shore and then turned sidways and the toward me head on!!!!

I was petrified to say the least with only a speargun and single 5/8 band and 5 prong spear. I held the gun in front of me to stick in a frontal attack. The shark just turned into me 3 times in tight turns with tail touching it's nose and then straightening out facing me head on. I held my ground and jabbed the spearhead toward the shark and it didn't seem to back off but luckily it didn't get any closer. It was onlt six feet away!!! After the third turn it just drifted off always about 3-5 feet under water.

To describe the fish it looked like a volkswagon with fins. Most graceful fish I ever saw, even though I was truly scared of being cut in half by a modern dinosaur!!!!! It's body resembled the body of stumpy, a famous female shark that frequents the Farollone islands.

After that I gently swam to my paddleboard and lifted anchor and three of us exited the area immediately!!!! My one and only experience with white sharks in 35 years of diving. They are beautiful and graceful, but still I honestly don't like them dropping in unexpectedly!!!!

Shark story - Freeport, TX

by Mike
(El Campo, TX)

I discovered the sport of surfing while attending junior college. The girl I was dating, use to go out with a surfer. It sounded like fun, so I tried it. A week later, I had my first board. A 7'2" waterlogged single fin. I'd been teaching myself to surf for a few months, so we took a trip to Freeport to check out the surf.

It was small and mushy, like most Texas summer days. I'd been in the lineup for at least 30 minutes, and started paddling like mad to catch the wave. As I reached down under the water to paddle, my right hand felt like it was rubbing sand paper. I knew right away it was a shark. I never saw it, but I took a full paddle stroke along it's back. I nearly fell off my board I was shaking so bad. I "belly-boarded" to the beach without putting a hand or foot in the water.

That's my only shark story. I did have a dolphin come to the surface and spew water from his blow hole about 2 feet from me once. Scared the crap outta me!

Shark Odds

by Foxy
(Baja California)

This article is dead-right when it comes to the paranoia about scary sharks in the water. I mean, the odds of shark attacks are astronomical, even in "shark inhabited" waters (diver.net says the odds are 1.8 million to 1 against!). I think you're more likely to drown by bashing your own head on your board, if you're sloppy.

I suppose if you had an open wound and paddled around for hours dripping blood into the ocean you might attract some, but as long as you don't act like 150 pounds of live bait, you'll never even see a shark in your lifetime.

A great surfing day at the beach

by Lars Anderson
(Ponte Vedra beach, FL)

Well, I had been in the water for an hour and a half at this point and there were maybe 15-20 other surfers out there.

I was with my own little group of people and about 5 feet in front of my board, i see a fin come up. my friend saw the body of the shark and I was the first one to see it. I yelled shark! and everyone was out of the water in 2 min flat. it was maybe a 5-6 foot shark. But that's not the end of the story.

My friends and I decided to walk down the beach a little more and go back in. we were in the water for about 15 minutes and I had just caught a good wave and was paddling back out when I see my friends let the white water from a big wave take them in.

I asked them what was going on and they said that they saw another, bigger shark next to them. they said that they thought it was about 7-8 feet. by then, we just left the beach with a great story to tell.

Jacksonville, FL, Ponte Vedra beach

Great White Shark Attempts Attack

by Cora Linn
(Canada )

This Was In Nova Scotia Halifax:

My husband and i were taking the kids to go swimming so we find a beach and decide it looks fine. But What We Missed Was the shark infestation sign. So while Todd (my husband) is setting up, me and the kids (Miranda,Monique & Melissa) went to go swimming.

They were ankle deep adjusting to the water while I was waste deep. After I quickly make sure they haven't gone any where I turn back to go swim a little deeper and I see a great white shark fin zig zagging its way towards me so I get the hell out of there running I felt a shark pain in my left calf but I keep on going thankfully nothing serious happened.

The sharp pain was a bite, I now have a scar on that leg to remind me to be careful in the ocean.

Looking Back

by Steve Snow
(Newport Oregon USA)

Sometimes,if you are extremely lucky, you witness something vivid and come away unscathed, able to reflect upon what you saw, or didn't see.

Here, on the Central Oregon Coast we have a large river that supports salmon runs both summer and winter. Coho and Chinooks run a gauntlet of seals and sea lions to make their journey to the spawning beds up miles of rivers and streams. The opening to the river is lined by jetties, they provide a safer entry from the ocean for boats, they also provide a surf break.

Yesterday, a hand full of us noticed a large gray shape as it surfaced and immediately plunged. A baby gray whale we all assumed as we sat just past the outside sets on a warm bright summer day. The intervals were short and the sea had doubled as a flooding tide was peaking. We all paddled toward the spot where the whale dove, hoping, I don't know,to touch it, commune in some cosmic way with one of our earlist ansestors, perhaps we just wanted to apologize for our bad behavior on such a noble and peaceful animal? I'm not sure exactly what I felt but we all moved toward it instintively.

The place was fishy, no other word for it. The aroma of WD-40 was on the water. Suddenly, the birds went nuts at something just a hundred yards away. I couldn't see what happened but I did see the birds flock to the spot and pick up chunks of what? A chum circle of about thirty feet across started to drift in our direction, pushed by the same waves we were waiting for. What was in those waves was the question. I immagined a head high wave with a crimson crown holding a great white ready to stike at the tail of my surfboard.

We all paddled back in, staying down with our hands glued to the rails, hearts pounding, like race horses blasting from the starting gate, not looking back for fear of what we would see.

A few hours later, we heard a report that a 12 foot Great White was caught, tangled in some crab pots just north of our location. On the six oclock news, the Great White's mouth was proped open with a four by four chunk of wood. It's eyes stared at the camera, just as they would have stared at me I knew, if I had looked back.

Hard Facts about Shark Attacks in California

by Tom A

As of Nov 09, where have been 99 shark attacks on people in California waters since 1952. 10 of those were fatalities.

Shark Or Seal?

by Bree Whalen
(Long Beach CA, USA)

A bunch of friends and I got together and were waiting for this wave to come. I was sitting on my board and i looked at the water and for some reason it looked grey. My friend Sarah screamed "SHARK!"

My first reaction was to get on the board. I sat on my knees and i was surrounded but this big grey thing.

Then about two minutes later it bumped into my board, bringing it up almost a foot out of the water.

The animal, was definitely grey.

I started screaming because 1). I didn't know what it was 2). If it was a shark, i was out of luck.

Then it was quiet and still,


And a seal popped out of the water and we just started to laugh.

To this day, we don't know if it was the seal or the shark.

great white at blacks

by pierre
(san diego)

a few months back, me and a few buds went down to black when it was firing at 6ft+ and light offshore, perfect conditions. after the super long paddle out to the lineup, we sat for about 20 minutes, when i saw something swim under my friend slowly, but i kept quiet, and then a few minutes later there was a little boat that came by about 100 ft away from us, and they were pulling up what looked to be a 4 or 5 foot long fish, which was later revealed to be a 4 ft 7 great white,the lifeguard was called and he came and told us to calmly swim out of the water, when we were all paddling in, two kooks got stuck in a rip tide. haha what a day.

Was it a dolphin??

by Katarina
(Burlingame, CA)

I was surfing yesterday at Linda Mar in Pacifica at around 6:30pm. I was close to the shore paddling out when I saw this large dolphin?? jump out and dive right in. It jumped just like a dolphin, but never came out again. It was well over 10 feet. My guess is about 15, but not sure. I guess I have never seen a dolphin in this area so I was just curious if anybody else saw it and what they think it was.

Jump

by Elizabeth Dood
(Australia)

I was with my uncle and we where on a pier there where a few kids jumping of the pier As a kid i wanted to do the something but my uncle had a feeling just i was about to jump he told me to wait and no to touch the water he told all of the kids jumping out of the water. They where really angry with him but after about 2 minutes there was a big shark that swim right passed where the boys where i jumping and i was about to. I'm so glad that i listen and didn't just jump

Far From Shore - The book

Take a look at this great book about a shark attack at Stinson Beach. The book is called Far From Shore
http://www.farfromshorethebook.com

You can also see it at
http://www.tinyurl.com/farfromshore