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From: Jackie Fenton <jackie_at_intelenet.net> subject: [Paddlewise] Fwd: White shark encounter Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 18:48:12 -0700 (PDT) · This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0 : Thu Aug 21 2025 - 16:33:01 PDT

Hello kayaking friends,

I received a fascinating account of a kayaker's encounter with a
great white on August 15 near San Diego.  I have asked for and received 
permission from the author to pass it on to you folks.  My thanks to
him for allowing me to forward this to you.  I'm also forwarding this 
to a shark enthusiasts/conservationists list which includes many shark 
researchers for any answers they may have to Bruce's questions.

These encounters are *extremely* rare and it's not likely Bruce will ever
see another.  However, I don't think that the knowledge of that would be 
much consolation in having just experienced such a close encounter.  

Sometimes it's easy for some folks that weren't present to make a lot of 
grandiose statements about what they would/will do.  Though it will be 
hard to truly imagine... if you can, read this as if you were in Bruce's 
paddling shoes and this was your encounter....

----- Begin Included Message -----

From: Bruce Cherry <doccherry_at_home.com>
To: Jackie Fenton <jackie_at_intelenet.net>
Subject: White shark encounter

Jackie:

Here's the whole enchilada:

I left Oceanside Harbor in North San Diego County at 8:30 AM on August
13.  The skies were partially overcast, with scudding clouds blocking
out the sun intermittently.  The water was relatively calm with swells
of about 4 feet.  I was alone and paddled my light blue Necky Narpa
sit-in kayak approximately 2 miles on a compass heading of 260, pretty
much heading straight out to sea.  I drifted and rigged up a salted
anchovy on a hook and let it drift toward the bottom.  I attached my
fishfinder to the left side of the cockpit.  It indicated a depth of 55
feet and a water temperature of 63 degrees.  The bottom contour lacked
any structure and appeared to be flat and sandy.  No fish appeared on
the screen  I turned on my handheld GPS and laid it on my lap.  My kayak
settled in parallel to the coast, bow to the south.  The only other boat
in the area was an inflatable about 1/2 a mile away.  When the sun would
peak out, the water was quite clear and I could see down perhaps 25
feet. 

I drifted with the current, which flowed along the coast in a northerly
direction.  For some time, perhaps an hour, nothing happened and I was
lulled into daydreaming and catnapping.  Suddenly my fishfinder
signalled an audible fish alarm, a beeping noise.  The transducer was
facing toward the shoreline [east].  I sat up and looked over the
cockpit but saw nothing.  It was sunny at the moment, so underwater
visibility was good.  I then glanced to the west, and it took a second
or two to understand just what I was looking at.  A shark, with the body
configuration of an orca---10-12 feet long but very, very fat around the
middle---was suspended a few feet beneath the surface, parallel to my
kayak, its nose pointed in the same direction as the bow of the kayak. 
My initial reaction was one of disbelief.  I had undergone surgery 8
days earlier and thought that the pain-killers I was taking might be
causing me to hallucinate.  Reality quickly set in, and as I looked at
the huge head, unblinking eyes, black dorsal aspect and milky underside,
I knew exactly what it was.

A great white.

I've seen many blue sharks and a few mako sharks, but this thing was in
a class by itself.  I kept homing in on the girth of its belly.

At that point, my pulse rate shot up and my heart was pounding.  I
didn't panic but I wanted desperately to be elsewhere.  My first concern
was survival.  I immediately cut my line, not knowing whether a 4-inch
anchovy down along the bottom would be causing a problem.  I had already
made enough movements for the shark to realize that something was going
on in whatever was floating above it, so I froze.  I didn't move a
muscle.  The shark hovered there for perhaps 15 seconds, not appearing
to be swimming at all, then very stiffly, without bending much, it swam
away, heading west.  It swam away perhaps 25 feet, still submerged 4 or
5 feet beneath the surface, and then slowly turned back toward me.  It
didn't make a broad arc when it turned, but rather turned in a very
tight radius, although bending very little.  It was now pointing
directly at me.  The sky was overcast again so I couldn't see much.  20
feet from the kayak, it surfaced, its dorsal fin completely out of the
water and slightly bent at the top.  It swam directly at the cockpit,
very, very slowly, covering the 20 feet in 4 or 5 seconds.  It came
within 2 or 3 feet.  I could see its head and both eyes clearly.  At
this time, I considered taking my fish billy, a short club used to
subdue fish before taking them aboard, and clobbering the thing when it
got close enough.  Still, I figured my only real strategy would be to
remain stationary and hope for the best.  The shark came up, still right
up on the surface with its back breaking the surface and its dorsal fin
completely out of the water, and then stopped two feet away.  Then it
simply sank out of sight.  I couldn't see anything because it was
overcast again.  When the shark submerged, I couldn't see any diving
motion---no porpoising or tail coming out of the water, nothing.  It
just sank.  I waited about 2 or 3 minutes, looked carefully around, and
then began a hasty retreat.  I very quietly brought in the fishfinder
[it never beeped again] and was going to turn it off.  When it's turned
off, it emits three high-pitched beeps, so I decided to leave it on,
worried that the noise might have an effect upon the shark, should it
still be in the area.  I reached down to get my GPS, which also beeps
when it's turned off, and decided to leave it on and right where it was.
I then removed my paddle from the side clips and slowly turned toward
shore.  I paddled very slowly for a couple hundred yards and then more
quickly and then at a rate that would qualify me for the Olympics.  I
never saw the shark again.

I started to head into the mouth of Oceanside Harbor, mentally drafting
the classified ad that I would place immediately upon landing.  "For
sale, sea kayak. Cheap."  But in reality I was so totally unnerved by
the experience that I knew it would be hard to go back out again.  I
stopped and turned around and remained a few hundred yards off the mouth
of the harbor and fished for another 15 minutes.  By then, my adrenaline
was back down, although I was hyper-energetic in general.  Then I
paddled back to the ramp.

Reconstructing the encounter, the shark must have approached me from the
east, setting off the fishfinder audible alarm.  Then it passed under or
behind me and then came up parallel to my west side, at which time I saw
it.  10 seconds elapsed from the time I heard the alarm until the time I
actually saw the shark.  I should also mention that at no time, even
when it surfaced and then again submerged, did the shark make a single
sound.  The entire encounter was total silence.  In fact, had the
fishfinder alarm not sounded, I would never have known the shark was
there.

I've made many trips to the Alaskan wilderness.  I've had close calls
with more grizzlies than I can count.  I've gone to Central America to
write magazine articles and have had encounters with saltwater
crocodiles.  But nothing compares to my encounter with this white shark.
It is a feeling of absolute helplessness and it left me unnerved.  It
won't be the same again out there.

I posted my encounter on the Coastal Kayaker's Fishing bulletin board
[West Coast Section] on August 13, under the name of Doc, about an hour
after I returned home. The response was considerable.  Some people
expressed their own fears of white sharks while others were entirely
cavalier about it, saying things like, "Well, when you've got to go
you've got to go.  No big deal."  Others E-mailed me that they had no
intention of changing their habits when coastal kayaking.  They would
still dangle their legs from over the side and trail a stringer of fish
amidships.  If "Whitey wants you, he'll get you!" their comments
expressed.

All I can say is if they have an encounter like mine, they'll probably
drop all the macho crap and realize that "whitey", although very, very
rare, is indeed out there and a kayaker had better use a little common
sense to avoid confrontation.

The "what-if's" are really on my mind now.  What if I had made a lot of
racket?  Would the shark have behaved differently?  Would it have fled
or would it have attacked?  What if I had been dozing and never made a
move, not looking over the edge when the fishfinder beeped?  Would my
total lack of motion have resulted in a different outcome?  What if I
did have a stringer of fish attached to the side?  Would the shark have
capsized me when it snatched the stringer?  Would I then have been next,
as I thrashed to get back on top of the kayak?  What if I were in a
sit-on kayak and my legs were dangling over the edge?  What if the shark
were an adult, a real speciman of 18 feet or so?  I hope that the shark
experts, the ones who can look upon this encounter through a lens of
objectivity, can answer some of my "What if's."  I also hope they can
shed some light on what I experienced.

To wrap this up, I have seen many photographs and videos of great white
sharks, and always have looked upon them with fascination.  I was
surfing the Web yesterday, trying to find out as much as I could about
white shark/kayak encounters, and suddenly, there on the screen, was the
black and white image of a white shark's head, the coal black eyes and
the same "grin."  I literally jumped in my seat.  That sounds pathetic,
I know, but I'm rarely rattled by anything and this experience has had a
profound impact upon the way I view white sharks.

I'll go back out again, probably in a week or so, and I'll head out from
Oceanside Harbor.  But I'll only go out a few hundred yards, not out to
where the incident took place.  There is no logic to that, since the
shark has undoubtedly moved on.  [There are no pinnipeds in the area and
very few fish.]  Further, the research that I've read over the past few
days clearly indicates that the danger is greater in closer to shore. 
But I'm afraid of the water 2 miles due west of Oceanside harbor, not
the rocky breakwater at the harbor mouth where the seals hang out.  Not
the least bit logical, I know.  I'll also try to avoid going out alone. 
A buddy or three would have been very welcome at the time.  Being alone
made the experience pretty rough.

I'd very much like to hear from the scientific community as well as from
other kayakers.  I'm not an expert in the field by any means [my
doctorate is in literature and my only real expertise with marine
biology is what I learned from reading MOBY DICK as a freshman], so
you'll be speaking with a neophyte.

My thanks to Jackie Fenton for her encouragement and support.

Sincerely,
Bruce Cherry

----- End Included Message -----

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