Encountering wildlife while surfing

[jaffa1949]

Meanwhile over here in Australia, Western Australia getting ridiculously fatal encounters and some on the mid coast of NSW.
But the sharks are also encountering bigger sharks as per this link, http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=cc0_1386335433

[oldmansurfer]

Don't plan a surf trip to Reunion Island http://www.surfermag.com/features/shark-attack-reunion/

[oldmansurfer]

Whoa Hawaii is getting some shark action http://www.bigislandvideonews.com/2013/ ... ii-island/

[mjames]

The last time I surfed at Bolsa Chica a dolphin porpoised high in the air right in front of me and splashed the hell out of me, like it was playing with me.... that was awesome. I have had a lot of close encounters with dolphins here in So Cal. They come very close, typically I'll see them within 20'. A few times they come about an arms length swimming by. One time in Redondo Beach a small pod swam in past the break to check my wife and I out, one popped its head up, looked directly at my wife in the eye, and swam over about 1' from her and just stopped, floated for a minute or two, and then left. She was freaked out- they do swim very close, but they don't typically interact with us. They are reallllyyy big when they get that close, it reminds you that we are in their territory.

[jaffa1949]

Supper is served.....

[PommeDownUnder]

Having watched a supper nearly decapitate a lady in the line up last week one less can only be a good thing!!

[CARBr6]

This is slightly off topic, but I'll run with it anyway.
I have yet to encounter anything whilst surfing, but I regularly encounter seals whilst rowing in the Thames. They will quite often pop up and take a look at us before dipping under and, usually, come in closer for a better look.

[PommeDownUnder]

Had a little fun over the weekend small shoul of bait fish skipping outta the water headed straight at me, started hearing the music they then proceeded to do a small lap around me music getting louder. Then the guys sat next to me just says "it's behind you"

Turns out it was a penguin watched the little fella hoping in and out of the water for the next 5 mins. Luckily I hadn't screamed like a little girl when he mentioned it was behind me. was impressive watching it skip through the water so easily.

[SurferSam]

Was out surfing with a few mates at the local break and one of them proclaimed he had seen a big orca fin slice through the water we all thought he was taking the piss but when we went in and was looking out not 10 meters away from the lineup there was a pod of mini orcas passing through.

[surf patrol]

We get a lot of stingrays roaming around in the summertime in Southern California. I've always been told that shuffling your feet through the sand when walking through the water will prevent them from stinging you. I guess the idea is that if you hit them with your foot they'll run away. It's only when you step on them that they sting you. We also get dolphins year-round. Pretty amazing to watch them surf or jump out the back of a wave.

SharkEX <edit>

[drowningbitbybit]

Ooh, I saw the biggest ray I've ever seen tonight... well over a meter across, just gliding right in front of my board

[billie_morini]

This is an interesting and fun thread. If Carb6 had not shared his story, I would not know seals are in the Thames. Also learned where other surfers have seen orcas, penguins, and giant rays.

This morning in Santa Barbara, Charlie the seal popped up 1 foot from my regular surfing buddy. This occurred just at the moment my buddy began to catch a fast breaking wave. Their eyes met, then Charlie's eye caught the building wave. Charlie sank quickly and my buddy surfed on.

[pico_train]

I've seen seals, dolphins, turtles, in Reunion no less, rays and plenty of fish. 10 days ago, we got chased out of the water by the sharkspotters siren alerting the line-up that a shark was close. I looked around and was amongst the furthest out. Waited for a wave to come in for about 10 seconds. 15 mins later we were back in and the crowd was gone. Great surf afterwards....

[drowningbitbybit]

I saw my mate Ray again this evening - and this time he leapt all the way out of the water. I didn't know they could that

[oldmansurfer]

I had a Spotted eagle ray jump out of the water directly in front of me today while I was SUPing.

[nickyb]

Am late to this but, I've seen loads of fish, dolphins once - a pod rocked up and checked out every group of surfers in the bay. Big rays swimming under the board is pretty common and pretty cool - they're massive! My only 'verified' shark encounter has been a teeny tiny baby shark swimming below us in the line up. Nobody got out.

[oldmansurfer]

From the ASP Roxy Pro recentlyhttp://youtu.be/pCTOQlTAg1g

[drowningbitbybit]

So, I wasn't surfing (it was flat apart from a bit of wind froth), but here's the beach just down the road I surf at regularly

A baby humpback, stranded on the sand. They tried to get it back into the ocean, even tried towing it with a boat, but it wasn't having it, so it gets to spend another night on the beach and they're going to try again in the morning.

[oldmansurfer]

ahhh too bad. It will probably be dead tomorrow. I used to help with whale strandings and the only baby humpback stranding I saw the people at the beach pushed it back in the water and then it came back up dead the next morning. It isn't like they accidentally swam into shallow water. They did it intentionally because they are tired of swimming which means they are close to death (except in mass strandings where a leader may be sick and the rest are following).

[surf patrol]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-28225682