Fatal Shark Attack in Cali

[bad_roo]

Anyone seen this?

http://www.divernet.com/news/stories...th180804.shtml

18 foot Great White took the guy's head off while he was diving for abalone. The guy had apparently been long convinced that he'd go out in a shark attack.

Anybody here ever see sharks off the Californioa coast?

[Viva]

Originally posted by bad_roo

Anybody here ever see sharks off the Californioa coast?

Used to see little ones (a few feet long) occasionally wash up on Will Rogers when I was little, but nothing big like this one.

[glademaster]

RIP. Well, if it whomped his head off at least he went pretty quick, prolly didn't feel too much. Sharks scare the bejesus outa me, one of the many reasons I much prefer winter and the mountains over summer and the ocean.

[slim]

See the shark thread in the Surf Forum. Beware... graphic red meat images are contained within.

[Alkasquawlik]

I've seen them kiteboarding before. Just cruising down the coast right between about 10 kiters. You'll know there is a shark when you seen 2 or more seals flop out of the ocean and scurry up the beach, sit in the sun for an hour and then slowly cruise back into the water. RIP, shark dude.

[TheDingleberry]

roo- hell yeah sharks are all around. Last year 3 great whites were in the San Onofre area, home to a great break called trestles, for about two months.

[Steven S. Dallas]

Originally posted by bad_roo
The guy had apparently been long convinced that he'd go out in a shark attack.

Nothing like a self-fulfilling prophecy to fulfill itself.

[comish]

As a SoCal native I have never seen em nor has my dad who has surfed here for 40 years. I think the one's hanging out last year at San O, were actually south, around the trails and it was actually the first I had heard of them in SoCal.

Now NorCal is a whole different story. There are tons of them up there. There is a triangle between the Faralon Islands and two points on the NorCal coast that is known for tons of Great White's. This unfortunately doesn't surprise me because of the number up there.

RIP

[Superstar Punani]

Originally posted by bad_roo
Anyone seen this?

http://www.divernet.com/news/stories...th180804.shtml

Anybody here ever see sharks off the Californioa coast?

When I first moved here in '98 I found a not so secret spot that got good waves and was uncrowded, near WSD's joint. Surfed that most of the time alone, or with a couple others out.

http://www.beachcalifornia.com/slide1.jpg
http://www.beachcalifornia.com/slide2.jpg
Last time I surfed it there was a lull. 3 of us were waiting for sets, then about 30 yards out we see this foot-high white triangular dorsal fin cruise the lineup for about 10 seconds, then submerged.

I think I set the speed record for paddling from the lineup to shore that day

Haven't surfed there ever since.

[Ripzalot]

sharks suck. i fucking hate them.

i grew up surfing brevard and volusia counties in florida. no great whites but the highest number of attacks in the world. no shit.

http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/sharks...tack/MapFL.htm

i've seen fins more times than i can remember. one time my buddy and i were stalked at new smyrna inlet. i saw it first, headed in, then went back out (waves were good), then on the way back out my buddy is paddling in all freaked out. same shark. so i turn around and start in with him. then the shark came between us and the shore. i think i released a boneless brownfish at that moment. we made it back in, but that may have been my last time at the inlet.

[Shredhead]

18 ft. + is a really, really big shark. I wonder if the water was murky. Sharks usually don't mess with divers too much if they can see that you are not food.

I use to see a few sailing out of San Pedro, they follow the fishing boats back into harbor.

[ak_powder_monkey]

Never seen a shark up here but apparently they are all over the place fortuneatly for the AK lunitic fringe surfers the sharks hang out in the summer when its usually not too stormy and only eat salmon. MMMM I want to go surfing in homer soon gotta go buy a wet suit. on a side note any of the mags ever catch a shark apparently white sharks tend to jump when they are hooked (the sharks up here are salmon sharks the closest relitive of the great whiite) I've been thinking of going fishing for em in the sound sometime..

[Duder]

The shark is likely to have been a great white, but the attack was described as being 'over in five seconds' and neither witness could provide a positive identification.

Identification??? WTF. Yah, I think he had sharp teeth and a large fin. Smelled like tuna....

[Squirrel99]

Originally posted by Ripzalot
sharks suck. i fucking hate them.

i grew up surfing brevard and volusia counties in florida. no great whites but the highest number of attacks in the world. no shit.

http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/sharks...tack/MapFL.htm

i've seen fins more times than i can remember. one time my buddy and i were stalked at new smyrna inlet. i saw it first, headed in, then went back out (waves were good), then on the way back out my buddy is paddling in all freaked out. same shark. so i turn around and start in with him. then the shark came between us and the shore. i think i released a boneless brownfish at that moment. we made it back in, but that may have been my last time at the inlet.

Hey- how about Sebastian Inlet. I worked a summer or two in Orlando and remember hearing how it attracted plenty of Tiger Sharks, which are just as bad, if not worse than Whites (?).

Guess you must have spent some time at the good ol' Ocean Deck bar in Daytona, too. That place rules.

[13]

Went down to Daytona to visit by buddy while he was living there & saw more dorsal fins than I cared to, in the water and on the Ocean Deck.

Sharks don't give me the willies like they do to most people, dunno why.

Mountain lions on the other hand ...

[SponsoredByDuctTape]

A friend of mine who used to be a professional bodyboarder wrote a thesis paper on sharks at Orange County beaches. She interviewed a veteran cop who's one of the helicopter pilots that patrol the Huntington Beach/Newport Beach area. She was totally shocked when he told her that he sees sharks "all the time." He said they're usually not too big (five to eight feet), but he sees them almost every day, swimming in and around the surfers. She asked him if he was sure they weren't porpoises, and he gave her some lengthy explanation about how he could tell the difference from a thousand feet up, but in essence, he was saying, "I'm positive that they're not porpoises."

Anyone remember the whale carcass that kept washing ashore in and around Huntington a couple of years ago? It washed up in Huntington, they dragged it out to the Catalina channel, and it drifted back to Newport, so they finally dug a huge pit on the beach in Huntington (right at the end of my street no less) and buried it. Well the same girl from above happened to know one of the Coast Guard guys on the boat that they used to tow the thing off the beach. Here's some articles:
---------------------------------------
August 17, 2001
Byline: GARY ROBBINS
The Orange County Register

HUNTINGTON BEACH One of the largest marine mammals to wash ashore dead in Orange County in at least 20 years -- a 40-foot-plus juvenile blue whale -- rolled onto the sand Thursday evening at the Huntington Beach Cliffs.

The blue whale, a member of the largest species on Earth, was blown almost onto the rocks north of Goldenwest Street about 6 p.m. by strong west winds.

The cause of death was not immediately known.
----------------------------------------
August 25, 2001
Byline: GARY ROBBINS
The Orange County Register

NEWPORT BEACH In one of nature's most vicious spectacles, a 15-foot great white shark feasted on a dead 50-foot baleen whale off Newport Beach for more than four hours Friday as lifeguards tried to tow the carcass away from shore.

The relentless shark began to feed sporadically on the whale about 3:30 p.m. and paused at one point to nip at the step of an Orange County Harbor Patrol boat whose deputies were keeping curious boaters from venturing too close to the animals about a
------------------------------------
August 26, 2001
Byline: PAUL DANISON AND ANDREW HORAN
The Orange County Register

A 15-foot great white shark fed on the carcass of a 50-foot whale Friday evening as Newport Beach lifeguards towed the huge aquatic mammal away from shore.

Boaters aboard about a dozen private craft watched as the lifeguards towed the badly decomposed whale 12 miles out to sea, away from Newport Harbor and the shoreline. At midafternoon Friday, the whale had drifted within a half mile of the mouth of Newport Harbor.
-------------------------------------

[comish]

Very interesting articles. I wonder why they have so many more attacks/ issues in NorCal then?

Obviously more seals = food for sharks close to land. That has to be one major reason.

[Superstar Punani]

Originally posted by comish
Very interesting articles. I wonder why they have so many more attacks/ issues in NorCal then?

Obviously more seals = food for sharks close to land. That has to be one major reason.

Yup. Red Triangle = Than Franthithco, to the Farallon Islands, and down to Ano Nuevo. This spot has the most sightings and fatal attacks on the planet. Other hotspots are South Africa and South Australia.

[Potsy]

I've seen many whites out on fishing trips off the Faralones Islands. They are quite common.

I have never seen a white near shore/surf in Norcal, but have heard of them occassionally venturing in. I've been within touching distance of sand and leopard sharks (4-5 footers) in surf in both Socal and Norcal, but they aren't anything to worry about. I saw a school of dolphins scare the sh!t out of a couple dozen surfers at Huntington once. Funny as hell watching them come in leaving a wake behind them, but then I was on the beach and had a good view of what they were, those guys just saw a fin.

I always had a real bad feeling at river mouths and never spent much time waiting for the best wave. I took off on everything to keep moving.

RIP to the ab diver.

[SponsoredByDuctTape]

All the sharks in So Cal are relatively small - at least small enough that they don't consider trying to eat you. People get bit sometimes, but they're really just checking them out, not trying to eat them.

I'm sure the seal population has something to do with it. Also, I think the water in So Cal is too warm to support the things that the really big sharks eat.

What's interesting about that article is that the guy was attacked on Sunday, and his body wasn't recovered until the next day. I've heard scientists say that sharks are rarely interested in eating people, rather they just bite to check it out. I'm guessing it's true since the shark got a bite (the guy's head), and decided it didn't want the rest of him.

[Superstar Punani]

Other shark sightings...

- Lennox Head, Australia. Perfect 4-6 foot surf and hardly anyone out. Me and my bud paddled out and had it all to ourselves an hour before dark. At dusk the ocean started churning with tons of fish jumping up. Birds were swooping. Then we realized that something was feeding on the fish making them jump out. A set came and I saw large shadows darting underneat...lots of it. Didn't wait to see what the fuck they were.

- Byron, Australia. So we find another spot the next day and surf some insane waves. Around lunch we wait out the high tide by climbing some cliffs to check out the view. We looked at the spot were were at in the morning and counted 8 sharks cruising the lineup in 30 minutes. Fuck that!

- Witch's Rock, Costa Rica. Boat was anchored way out. 200 yard paddle between lineup and boat through deep dark water. Suddenlt big fish start jumping out of the water...3-4 ' long tuna and a bunch of other fish.....What was chasing them? So we start scrambling to shore, just as the Kiwis start scrambling from shore back to the lineup since they didn't want to piss off the crocs at the rivermouth. Good times. The boat guy picked our gringo asses up before we could get eaten....


That's why skiing rules.... You don't have to worry about jumping into the food chain and ending up as a snack

[warthog]

I heard about this a couple days ago on a Boston Whaler site I lurk on. This guy's buddy is a member over there. Check it out.Whaler Site

[glademaster]

Originally posted by Punani
That's why skiing rules.... You don't have to worry about jumping into the food chain and ending up as a snack

Couldn't have asid it any better myself. Yeah, there are risks you take while skiing, but you can reduce most of them by making the right choices and staying withing your comfort zone. I'll a day skiing over a day in the ocean anytime.