Sharks are normally pretty cool, unless you get near them, and then they become terrifying creatures, particularly if you and a bunch of friends are on surfboards and not expecting a giant great white shark to jump out of the water in front of you. For a few surfers taking on the waves just off the coast of San Francisco on Wednesday, that’s exactly what happened.
“It was a dolphins and mermaids kind of day,” explained longtime Ocean Beach surfer Nick Masturzo to Surfline. “Two-to three-foot and glassy.”
H was paddling over a wave at 8:46 AM local time and a “seven-eight foot juvenile Great White” jumped out of the water right in front of him.
“I saw it straight on,” Masturzo said. “And when I saw that white belly go up and the super defined white of pectoral fins I knew what it was. I told everyone around me and went in. It was funny, some people were saying, ‘that’s not cool,’ but I would never say ‘shark’ on a small day to try to clear the water. If it was six-to-eight-foot, maybe. [Laughs.]”
At Ocean Beach, where the shark was doing the jumping rather than Fonzie on a jet-ski over said shark, there has never been a recorded shark attack though a surfer was reportedly bumped by one in 2005.
“I’ve been surfing here 30 years and never seen anything like that,” Masturzo said. “Lots of dolphins, seals…we know they’re there but don’t want to believe it. Like, ‘It’s sandy, there’s no kelp, no giant sea lions, it’s great here.’”
It’s not Shark Week, but this incident is a reminder that for the sharks themselves, Shark Week is every week.
[Surfline]
