“The Daily Froth”
The Tale Of Two Shark Encounters
If you scroll past this addition of The Daily Froth to my Viewers Guide for The World Surf League, I suggested watching professional surfing as a way to study the masters of our craft.
In the article, I mentioned that competitors surf the most challenging and difficult waves in the world, but what I failed to mention was that they must also do so at locations that our brimming with great white sharks.
Last week in Jeffrey’s Bay, South Africa, three time world champion, Mick Fanning took on fellow Australian Julian Wilson in the final. The highly contested matchup had an added bonus for whoever was victorious would go on to take the ratings lead from Adriano De Souza. In the opening minutes of the heat, Julian Wilson caught a decent ride for a score of 6.67, which left Mick Fanning out the back and with priority to catch the next set wave that rolled through. However he would never get that chance.
Caught on live webcast, Mick Fanning was bumped off his board by an estimated 15 foot great white shark that had been entangled in his leash while attempting to bite him. The first incident of it’s kind in competition, the shark encounter, ( deemed not an attack fortunately due to lack of injury), highlighted the intense commitment it takes to surf on “The Dream Tour. Not only do competitors have to deal with surfing waves such as Pipeline and Teahupoo , they also have to compete in places notorious for sharks ( Margret’s River, Bells Beach, Snapper Rocks, and Fiji have had staggering amounts of sightings, encounters, and fatal attacks). Luckily for Mick, he was in competition and the water safety team scooped him and Julian onto the back of jet skis before the shark could inflict any bodily harm.
Just two days before Mick Fanning duked it out with the bane of ocean goers world wide, I too had my first encounter with a great white shark while surfing Salmon Creek in Northern California. Unlike Fanning’s episode, mine was undocumented until now.
“ I was on a road trip with my friend Steven Manners to Oregon for our annual jaunt along the Lost Coast ( the nickname for highway 1 north of San Francisco). That morning we surfed in Santa Cruz at Waddell Creek and nervously chatted about how eerie it was to be surfing in the red triangle, an area that includes Bodega Bay, The Farallon Islands and Mendocino County. Maybe we jinxed it I guess.
Last year when we made the drive along the scenic and rugged coastline, we had spotted Salmon Creek and it looked playful and inviting, however there weren’t any other surfers in the lineup and we figured it was a bad idea. So when we rolled up and saw three other surfers enjoying the electric blue water, we were ecstatic to surf in the four to five foot waves. The sun was doing it’s thing, the wind was light, and there were a ridiculous amount of activity in the water. In the channel, we saw pods of dolphins feasting on schools of fish, which made us feel slightly uncomfortable but we knew as long as they were around, there wouldn’t be great whites.
My intuition told me that I should paddle in but my nagging surf addiction wouldn’t let me. It was four in the afternoon when the fog began to roll in from the Pacific Northwest, blanketing the coast and cutting visibility down to a handful of meters. I began to worry that maybe surfing in the bloody epicenter of the Red Triangle wasn’t the wisest of decisions. Just as I was on the verge of a panic attack, a five foot dorsal fin erupted out of the water twenty yards from my position in the lineup and it was swimming directly at me. My eyes widened with terror as the prehistoric beast swished it’s terrible tail and propelled itself under the exact spot I had just been sitting. I paddled for a wave with the fear of death propelling me faster then I have ever paddled before. Adrenaline coursed through my veins like lightning.
Fortunately, I caught a wave and signaled to Steve and the other surfers in the lineup that I had just seen a great white. Everybody heeded my warning and headed to shore where we sat around a campfire and talked about how lucky we were to get out of the water unscathed.
Once the shock had subsided, I had enough of the north and wanted nothing more to head home to the safe and shark-less shores of San Diego!