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!!!!