18 foot shark sighted in waters off Cambria

Wasn’t much on here so here’s some chum, TRUE STORY

1978 I was surfing hazard canyon and here comes a big set of waves with an at least 25″ Great white riding the biggest wave, going at least 35-45 mph, with the spray blasting off him I could see him coming from at least a mile away, needless to say this is not my best day and I have never been the same since.

So here he comes, big fin 3 feet high, I am praying , please go on bye, but no, I had caught the big sharks eye, and he looked at me as he did a big sweeping cut back on the swell and proceeded to advance right at me coming down and going faster than the swell he was riding.

Okay so I haven’t crapped yet, but when the dam thing goes under water about 35 feet away coming straight at me I said,” To hell with the sitting still shit, I am getting the flock out of here.”

There was a smaller wave infront of the big one the shark was riding, so I paddled as hard as I could not even thinging I could catch this little wave from so far out, the big wave that the shark had out run was behind us causing the smaller wave to break and I was able to catch it and turn left going away from land and into deeper water, I knew there was no way to out run this shark.

So here I am on my knees and am having the time of my life surfing and praying to god this thing from below doesn’t get to eat me on this day. I cut back on the wave after a nice little screaming left hand section and I am looking at the back end of a 25 foot plus shark that doesn’t know I am there, I immediatly pull out of the wave and look toward shore, my surfing buddies, are waving me to stay out.

So this is where it gets good, I am freaking out by now, remeber the big wave the shark came riding in on in the beginning? Well the shark went in so close to the rocks at Hazard Canyon that the big wave came and blew the big shark up over the rocks and into the lagoon right next to where we used to change, Ed Dumong a commercial fisherman was on the beach, he saw my chance for saftey and got everybody there to do jumping jacks and wave me in, I caught the thrid wave of the set and road it all the way in to a foot and ahalf of water, this guy I barely knew is screaming at me to get out of the water NOW!

I was pretty tired but I did what he said and low and behold here is the 25 foot great white flopping around 20′ from the rocks we are all moving back on, the tide was medium and the shark had such good sonar it was able to find the only way off the reef straight back out in a three foot deep channel, back through the waves like a bull dozer. This is a true story and it was reported to the coast gaurd, I don’t surf now unless there are others in the water, I also feel that since that attack, there has been a dramatic increase in shark ativity on the central coast of California. So becareful and if you do go into the water, remeber you are never alone.