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Anatomy of a GW shark attack......
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Attack, investigation, whatever. Unnerving is what it is.

Friend of mine in Monterey CA posted this on a scuba board. He's a very experienced diver and kayaker. Pucker factor 10
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It was a bit past 4:30 Saturday afternoon. I was in my kayak. I had paddled from the Breakwater ramp to Shell St PG and was on my way back. I was hit off the end of San Carlos Beach about 100 yards or so off the Monterey Bay Inn - probably over Metridium. So, I was near the end of a great paddle - I encountered dolphins off Point Cabrillo and a large group of very young harbor seals close in to Hopkins Station.


Suddenly, I heard a loud Bang as my kayak and I flew into the air. I landed outside my boat, look back to it and to my horror saw a large great white shark no more than three feet away had my kayak in its mouth. I could clearly see it's 2-inch teeth and it's black eye that looked lifeless.


I scrambled away from my boat as fast as I could and started kicking towards shore - really wishing that I was wearing fins! In between yelling "No God No" I was shocked at how many thoughts about how to survive ran through my head - don't splash, don't let your legs hang down, keep your eyes on the shark and swim away, don't act like a panicked seal. After Five minutes, maybe five years - it was hard to tell, I pulled out my Nautilus Lifeline and called in a mayday to the coast guard. They were having trouble hearing me. I spotted a sail boat and started frantically waving to them with my right arm as I operated the radio with my left hand.


While this was going on, the shark was using my boat as a chew toy. I saw it spin with the boat at least three times. It started pushing the boat towards me and then left the boat and headed for me. Suddenly it dove. I put my face in the water to see if it was under me, but I couldn't see anything.


I looked up and saw the sail boat approaching me. After some very quick explanations I said that I needed to get into the small boat. There was no ladder or transom. I had been in the water for about twenty minutes. I was wearing a 3-mil, but had forgotten my booties and was bear foot. My feet were numb and I was running on nothing but adrenaline. I could not get up into the boat or stand up on their motor. I asked them to call 911 and ask for coast guard assistance.


The coast guard showed up 5 minutes later and pulled me into their boat. All my gear was floating and was recovered. They took me back to the Breakwater..


In the parking lot I spoke with the people from the sailboat who came to my rescue. They were a young family who attended NPS. They were taking their young daughter out on her first sail. According to them, the shark was as big as my boat. I have a 14-ft kayak. Bite marks show that it had the whole girth of the boat in its mouth. My boat is covered with bite marks from end to end with multiple punctures. People told me that they could see the shark slapping the surface of the water with its fins as it mauled my boat.


I had always thought that great whites hit a target to test it and then backed off. This was a prolonged attack on the surface.
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Re: Anatomy of a GW shark attack...... [ChrisM] [ In reply to ]
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Damn. As a guy who fishes from a kayak offshore, this makes me pucker too. Fortunately Great Whites are not common in the Gulf (south Texas), but I know there are some out there. We get big Tiger, Bulls, and Hammerheads though.

Is your friend the one it happened to? Can you post the link to the OP on the scuba site?


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Last edited by: Endo: Mar 20, 17 13:50
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Re: Anatomy of a GW shark attack...... [Endo] [ In reply to ]
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Re: Anatomy of a GW shark attack...... [ChrisM] [ In reply to ]
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Great Whites as an apex predator have shown the only predictive thing about them is the unpredictability. There is no real pattern to their migration, there is no consistent attack, and there really is no consistent prey. We know they like seal and whale meat and tend to backoff when they detect otherwise, that trial tends to be fatal to the target. But, Seal and Whale are ideal for predator doing ok. A hungry GW will eat anything, they have found suits of armor, license plates, surf boards, boat pieces, buoys and obviously human pieces in their stomachs.


"In the world I see you are stalking elk through the damp canyon forests around the ruins of Rockefeller Center. You'll wear leather clothes that will last you the rest of your life. You'll climb the wrist-thick kudzu vines that wrap the Sears Towers. And when you look down, you'll see tiny figures pounding corn, laying stripes of venison on the empty car pool lane of some abandoned superhighway." T Durden
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Re: Anatomy of a GW shark attack...... [ChrisM] [ In reply to ]
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ChrisM wrote:
Yes, happened to him


http://diver.net/...posts003/90558.shtml[/quote]

Off topic, I know, but.......is that format what ST looked like back in the day?

Pink? Maybe. Maybe not. You decide.
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Re: Anatomy of a GW shark attack...... [ChrisM] [ In reply to ]
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He's gonna need a bigger boat






Take a short break from ST and read my blog:
http://tri-banter.blogspot.com/
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Re: Anatomy of a GW shark attack...... [Tri-Banter] [ In reply to ]
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Tri-Banter wrote:
He's gonna need a bigger boat

LOL. Oh, hell, yeah! Ordinarily the rule of thumb is +2 feet. I bet this guy goes for +20 feet.
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Re: Anatomy of a GW shark attack...... [ChrisM] [ In reply to ]
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Pics of the kayak?
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Re: Anatomy of a GW shark attack...... [japarker24] [ In reply to ]
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japarker24 wrote:
ChrisM wrote:
Yes, happened to him


http://diver.net/...posts003/90558.shtml


Off topic, I know, but.......is that format what ST looked like back in the day?


Make sure you send Slowman thanks, because you don't have to read a forum that looks like that.

Thanks Slowman! You the best.
Last edited by: ubdawg: Mar 21, 17 5:57
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Re: Anatomy of a GW shark attack...... [axlsix3] [ In reply to ]
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Re: Anatomy of a GW shark attack...... [ChrisM] [ In reply to ]
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ChrisM wrote:
I was hit off the end of San Carlos Beach about 100 yards or so off the Monterey Bay Inn - probably over Metridium.

Sounds like the guy spend an awfully long time in the water being only 100 yds from shore. I think I may have beaten Phelps' world record getting the F out of there. Terrifying, but do you think the shark was just playing around like a puppy with a chew toy?
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Re: Anatomy of a GW shark attack...... [TheForge] [ In reply to ]
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TheForge wrote:
Great Whites as an apex predator have shown the only predictive thing about them is the unpredictability. There is no real pattern to their migration, there is no consistent attack, and there really is no consistent prey. We know they like seal and whale meat and tend to backoff when they detect otherwise, that trial tends to be fatal to the target. But, Seal and Whale are ideal for predator doing ok. A hungry GW will eat anything, they have found suits of armor, license plates, surf boards, boat pieces, buoys and obviously human pieces in their stomachs.

FYI: sharks don't eat metal because they're hungry. They eat it because the oxidation of metal confuses their electrical field sensors and they mistake it for fish.



_____________________
Not later. Now.
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Re: Anatomy of a GW shark attack...... [North] [ In reply to ]
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North wrote:
ChrisM wrote:
I was hit off the end of San Carlos Beach about 100 yards or so off the Monterey Bay Inn - probably over Metridium.


Sounds like the guy spend an awfully long time in the water being only 100 yds from shore. I think I may have beaten Phelps' world record getting the F out of there. Terrifying, but do you think the shark was just playing around like a puppy with a chew toy?


Probably a few things... the shock getting dunked unexpectedly in low 50 degree water shark or no shark, he had the proper clothes but no booties; Was wearing a pdf, hard to swim in that; from his account he's really not sure how long it actually was, understandably; don't really want to be thrashing around diverting the shark's attention from the kayak.

No idea what was in the shark's head, but as usual if it wanted to "attack" him, he wouldn't be here to talk about it likely. From what I know, and so FWIW, sharks "feel" by their teeth. Likely it was curious as to what the boat was, or perhaps thought it was prey from below hence the approach from underneath, which is how they hunt (although at 14' the kayak would be a pretty big prey, so maybe not likely).
Last edited by: ChrisM: Mar 21, 17 11:21
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Re: Anatomy of a GW shark attack...... [ChrisM] [ In reply to ]
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I found the same post on some other forum and someone suggested that the kayak might have been stuck in the sharks teeth. I don't know if that's possible/likely but if so, it would explain all the thrashing.

How does Danny Hart sit down with balls that big?
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Re: Anatomy of a GW shark attack...... [BLeP] [ In reply to ]
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BLeP wrote:
I found the same post on some other forum and someone suggested that the kayak might have been stuck in the sharks teeth. I don't know if that's possible/likely but if so, it would explain all the thrashing.

Could be, I've seen a lot of pics of the boat and it looks like scrapes all over it (to me it looks underwhelming but folks that know kayaks were impressed). Didn't see any tooth marks that looked like punctures but certainly wouldn't know for sure.
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Re: Anatomy of a GW shark attack...... [hank rearden] [ In reply to ]
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The damages were not as extensive as I'd imagined. Thought it would be something like this...


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Re: Anatomy of a GW shark attack...... [ChrisM] [ In reply to ]
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I saw quite a few what looked like punctures all the way through. If so, that is some crazy force exerted.

However the bite marks are all over the kayak, not just the stern where the rudder is. So the shark had to have taken a few goes at it to get the marks as spread out as they were.
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Re: Anatomy of a GW shark attack...... [Endo] [ In reply to ]
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Endo wrote:
I saw quite a few what looked like punctures all the way through. If so, that is some crazy force exerted.

However the bite marks are all over the kayak, not just the stern where the rudder is. So the shark had to have taken a few goes at it to get the marks as spread out as they were.

I went back and looked at the smug mug pics and yeah, now I see those other ones. Plus the bent rudder. Bites all up and down the length of the boat, was just gnawing away at it

Damn
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