My Shark Encounter

Seventeen-plus years of windsurfing and I’d never seen a shark.   I never wanted to see a shark, but if I did my preference was to see a fin perhaps 100 yards in the distance, swimming parallel to shore, oblivious of me.   That’s not what I got.

What I also wanted if I ever saw a shark was to be planing and well powered so I could head back to the beach and maybe have lunch while the shark left the area.  That’s not what I got either.

Sailing outbound at the Bowl in side-on winds, I was maybe 600 yards from the launch and 200 from the beach when I jibed off some swell.   Caught the sail, got back into the footstraps, and then a big lull had me quick-step out of the straps so I could shlog.

And then my head just turned upwind…I must have heard it surface.   I was staring at a black triangle, ten feet away from me.  During the first thousandth of a second I thought “not a dolphin” (I’ve never seen a dolphin off of Long Island, but one can hope.)    For a quarter second I thought “I can’t believe I’m staring at a shark fin”.   Then I thought “it’s the size of a very large slice of pizza.”   Then some swell changed the angle of the light reflecting on the water, and I saw all of the shark.   About seven feet long, swimming slowly parallel to me.    And it was so very much a shark.    It wasn’t swimming by, it was swimming with me, checking me out.   I have no spitting skills at all but I could have easily spit on its head.    I was not happy.   None of the other guys were anywhere near me…it was just me and this shark. 

I focused on getting away.   Bearing off seemed like a good idea (the beach was downwind) and there was a tiny bit of increased speed.   I stopped looking at the thing and focused on the rig, encouraging myself with the thought that the shark probably wasn’t planning on attacking.   Yeah we’ve all heard the statistics that you’re more likely to be hit by lightning than be attacked by a shark, but I think those odds shorten some when:

1.    You’re by yourself hundreds of yards from shore.
2.    A shark is ten feet away from you, and not leaving.

Anyhow I was shlogging on my broad reach, making little headway and hoping for a gust to get me planing (I didn't get one.)   Then the thought hits me “unhook, unhook!”   What if the wind dies completely for a moment…hooked in I might not be able to do a mad balance dance, and then I’d fall in.   A minute later I start thinking “maybe I should hook in” worrying about fatigue.    Then I had my stupidest thought:  Look behind me and see what the shark is up to.   I started to look back when a voice in my head said “ARE YOU INSANE WHAT IF YOU LOSE YOUR BALANCE!” which snapped my head back forward, where I saw a nice wave forming…perhaps five feet high, which was plenty for what I needed.   

The first swell took me a third of the way to the beach.   I rode the second the rest of the way in.   I was on the beach.

I walked my gear a few hundred yards back to the launch, where the guys were hanging out waiting for the wind to come back.   I was looking forward to telling my story, so they could laugh at me and reassure me with their own experiences…these guys have been windsurfing in the ocean for ages (this is just my third ocean year) and surely they’ve seen plenty of sharks.

I started with Scott.  “Really?” was all I got.

Then Bill Barber.  Bill surfs, so he must see plenty of sharks.  “That’s rare,” he told me.  In twenty years in the ocean he’d only seen one on Long Island.

Then Fisherman arrived.  Fisherman is in fact a commercial fisherman, he knows what’s up, and he will not let me down.  He asks me to describe the fin.  I tell him about the pizza slice.  Fisherman says “that’s pretty big”.

Shit.   The whole plan was to get reassured so I could go back out and sail without fear.   But that didn’t happen.*   

Then the wind came back up and nobody cared about my shark and they all went out.   Jon Ford and Jeff and Ethan and Jimi all showed up and didn’t care about the shark and they sailed too, so of course I went back out, though I kept my runs short…no long excursions to the outside for me.   And if you’ve ever experienced some nervousness sailing in the ocean, distracted by imagined perils in the deep that caused you to be tentative in your sailing and screwed up your technique, imagine how you’d do sailing in waters where you know there’s a shark… a shark you've already met and that has demonstrated some casual interest in you.   I was fine on the inside, but for the rest of the day on the outside I was a tentative mess.   What knucklehead sails back to the shark?

I'd happily sail the Bowl again tomorrow, though.  

* Jon Ford arrived later and said he’s seen the occasional shark hanging out by the sand bar in the past. 

(Top:  I'm jibing well on the inside, but I'm not smiling 'cause I'm headed back towards Shark Town.  Photo by Bill Doutney.)

Comments

[christina]

Drew it in with your animal magnetism, did you? You're right: I chant those long odds when a dark shadow goes by my periphery. Also chant: only pull into a ball if it starts to circle you, otherwise, keep pulling, breathe, relax. Safely at the keyboard, now, I say: I hope if I see one, I will just keep swimming long and calm, because really, what else can you do? other than wear a yellow bikini? (heard they don't like yellow). But I won't. I'll probably freak out, cold sweat, and unlike you, would NOT go back in, IF i got out.

[catapulting_aaron]

Well I'm glad you chose not to spit on it... sharks HATE rude people.

[Joe Rouse]

Yikes, where's my mommy?

Great story!

[Benjamin]

Dude, that's INSANE! Glad you made it out ok. And I can't BELIEVE you went back in! I've seen a few underwater, but that seems like a whole different ball of wax; we both knew what each other were, vs. looking for all intents and purposes like a very tasty seal. Yikes!

[sergem]

Wow! Happy birthday, I guess :)

[Neurstev]

Michael,

We all know seapeople like to tell a "the one that got away" story...but in this case, you're the one that got away.

Immediately, try to remember all the details of the sharks morphology: Fin shape size and location, particularly the tail fin, etc. Then go on to one of those sharks sites and just make sure it isn't one of 3 members of The Evil Axis. Barring that...it's just a curious fish, albeit a shark, but nothing to worry about. And if it isn't part of the Evil Axis, all the better, for it's then helping to protect the food chain for us, from an undesirable apex predator.

Wos, a GREAT tale. All in all, still better you than me. But if it was me, we would have found out if a sailor can waterstart on pure flatulence alone.

[Tony]

Mike, I have been thinking about getting a longboard to surf the LI ocean swell this summer-fall... now I'm having second thoughts...;) Never heard of shark attacks on LI but never really looked into statistics....

[the editor]

Tony, get the longboard! I'm going windsurfing in the ocean the next chance I get.

[Andy]

he he he he he he he snicker snicker chuckle haha! That's all you can do (laugh). Because if it wants to eat you, it will. Just goes to show that it wasn't all that interested. I'll bet your dinner tasted extra scrumptious that night (even though it was just hot dogs).

:)

[Jon]

OH Please.......sharks are people friendly here on LI. I was out in the surf yesterday and the shark stopped by and asked for the Puffin - he wanted to know why he was being chased around by the guy with the knife (fin) attached to his board.

[Rich Simons]

Michael,

You are a braver man than I. You didn't panic and thought thru your options of getting back to shore. Can't believe you went back in to sail some more.

Rich S.

[gp]

This is a good movie about sharks: http://www.sharkwater.com/.

[Bunty]

Thank God you managed to stay on your board. If it was me the first thing that would have happened is I would have fallen in with shock then God knows what would have happened. Mind you not all sharks are going to attack you - they may be just curious. Rather not find out though. I am quite impressed at how focussed you seemed to remain. I hope I would be like that in your situation.

[michael]

Bunty, I'm here to tell you that there's nothing like a shark to focus you on your shlogging skills! Someone elsewhere commented "imagine if you were a kiteboarder in that lull!" As for the possibility that the shark was just being "curious" (which it surely was) one of the ways that sharks determine whether or not you're worth eating is by taking a bite out of you. Marine biologists call this "tasting" and apparently most sharks spit out whatever they bite off humans, and then leave.

That's a load off your mind (or your leg).

[Pat]

Two weeks ago I had an even more perilous shark encounter while visiting South Texas near the Gulf of Mexico. I had to visit a lawyer.

[Hugh]

Cool story. I've kiteboarded over smaller sharks at Cape Hatteras, sound and ocean side, but was going a lot faster than that. Love to see some more.

[will]

i have irrational fear of sharks and snakes . . . i'd a been rude if that was me on the board . . . and there would have been a scene. not sure i'd a seen the scene, but there'd a been one. bravo

[Ian Berger]

I think your shark encounter should go under the category of “excellent experiences”. The truth is that this is most likely your fourth or seventh (and that's probably conservative) close encounter with a shark: this is the one you saw. The others passed below you, or you just missed them.

-Ian

[bonnie]

Wow!

[Turinas]

I just soiled myself

[bridget]

talk about an adrenaline rush!

[Soundbounder]

Wow!!!
Amazing story. My brother lives north of San Diego and surfs there.
About a year and a half ago a triathlon swimmer was attacked and killed by a shark.