GW spotted near SC

Here is the transcript of the article in the Sentinel about a surfer that saw a GW Shark near Santa Cruz last week.

Kind of reminds me of the joke about the guy putting on Tennis shoes while hiking and his friend asks why... well in case of bears....you can't outrun a bear....I don't have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you......



As the fog lifts from Rio del Mar beach, the sun's warmth permeates, convincing Ryan Mackey and me to paddle out at Platform's, despite the uninspiring surf conditions. We enjoy the beautiful weather and clear water as we surf small, inconsistent wind-waves close to shore.

While waiting for a set, a dark, large object in the water catches my peripherals. There, within eight feet of me, placed still in the water, the ocean's most infamous predatory fish -- a great white shark.

The clarity of the water allows me to see its gills, the speckled skin going from dark to light, and its sheer size, which looks about 10-12 feet long. Fear penetrates my bones, heightened from all the shark-week programs and cheesy TV dramatizations that hype the great white as vicious and bloodthirsty.

In a frenzy of four-letter words mixed with "shark," "holy," and "big," I paddle parallel to the beach, directly away from the predator, passing Ryan, who does not know yet what all my commotion is about.

As I frantically pass him, I feel Ryan clinging to my longboard as he sees the tail and dorsal of the great white sticking out of the water. My genius survival instincts put my shortboarding friend between me and the shark [some friend I am!], leaving Ryan
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to worry about somehow paddling his little 5-foot-10 thruster without dangling his feet over the tail, looking like chum.

Operating under full adrenaline, I never look back as I try to catch a tiny rolling wave, but it's not enough to push me to shore. Ryan, now feeling like a human lure, looks back to see the great white submerging and turning towards us, perhaps attracted by the sound of our flailing paddling. A bigger wave approaches and Ryan sees the shark's silhouette, which appears to be turning back out to sea.

We ride the same wave in on our bellies yelling "shark." It appears that some aren't fazed by great whites as most surfers ignore our squealing and continue surfing. Maybe they think we're "crying wolf" to clear the lineup for ourselves.

We stay on the beach pointing and making dorsal fins on our heads with our hands. Our distress signals go to no avail. Perhaps the great white serves a lesser threat to surfers than we perceive.

Regardless, Ryan and I slap "it's-good-to-be-alive" high-fives. Ryan is entitled to drop in on me whenever he wants, since I exploited him as a decoy.


cool stuff

Stoggie

what are friends for? Geez!

It's amazing they arent regular visitors at steamer

...what really amazes me is that there are hardly any encounters or sightings in the Wadell area...which is just a stones throw South of Ano Nuevo. I 've met many wind and kite surfers at work and they don't see any at all....hmmmm

I'm sure the sharks see them though, probably have a name for each board...

probably have a name for each board...

funny but a scary thought...I'm predicting some sort of encounter at Wadell sometime soon. Let's just hope it's not a fatal one

Davenport would be my next guess....

See Mooch, we DO have at least ONE fish around Santa Cruz!

See Mooch, we DO have at least ONE fish around Santa Cruz!

Probably just slummin'

Stoggie

GWs have been spotted at Wadell by surfers in the past...maybe just not reported then.....they live in the ocean, near large mammal food sorces.

See Mooch, we DO have at least ONE fish around Santa Cruz!