Been a Tad Sharky

They dropped down to one-hundred feet and alighted on a ledge. Neither planned to be at that depth for too long, but they wanted to take in the view. The great ocean expanded out in front and down below them in a subdued, stunning expanse. Sitting on the ledge, the filtered light suddenly became a bit dimmer, like when you are reading a book outside and a cloud drifts in front of the sun. All they saw next was the one eye and a massive form, swimming slowly by. It circled around and next came straight on at the pair, stopping, its snout less than two feet from them. Knowing at that depth their time and air was limited, they knew they must ascend. When the creature once again circled off, they turned and hugged a pinnacle all the way up. Neither had the nerve to look back, but they both knew somewhere, down below them, there remained an eighteen-foot great white shark.  

This was the experience of members of our dive community a couple weeks ago at Point Lobos. My first thought after hearing their story was, “Is that awesome or terrifying?” The part of me who knows that, at that depth and with that behavior, the divers probably were not in any real danger, is extremely jealous of such an amazing experience with such an ominous creature. The part of me who has that famous Discovery Channel video, of the great white shark leaping out of the water to crunch the baby seal, playing over and over in my head, is peeing my pants at the thought of an eighteen foot great white at Point Lobos. Now I am hoping if I am ever faced with that situation the logical me will take over, but who knows?

There have been a number of shark encounters in Santa Cruz County in the past few weeks. There was a great white sighted off of Seabright State Beach eating a seal, and a man may or may not (there are rumors the guy made it up) have been attacked by a shark at Manresa State Beach. Sharks are amazing creatures. Eating seals is what they do and it seems most shark attacks on humans are a case of mistaken identity. As divers we are less likely to be mistaken for a seal than a surfer. We also spend most of our time in the ocean at a depth which is not where great whites hunt. Either way, awesome or terrifying, or both, it’s unlikely most of us will ever encounter great white sharks unless we seek them out. I am no expert but, from what I have heard, the encounter at Point Lobos was strange behavior for these animals. The shark was probably just really curious as to what these weirdly-shaped bubble leakers were doing. He probably wrote about it in his blog . . .