Surfing Waves

A wake from an underwater source suddenly appeared near my board and quickly moved about 25 yards toward shore before disappearing. There was no fin but it was big enough to make me think about paddling in. I didn't see it again and enjoyed the rest of my sesh.

I'm guessing it was a sea lion. What do you think?

I've seen my fair share of sea lions. They are funny animals like a dog. They will keep popping their head out the water to check what you're doing.

I suspect it's a whale if it's able to generate a wake.

If I were you, I would paddle to the closest surfer and catch the next wave in.

Today someone was asking me if it's a sea lion 20 feet away from me. I was like I hope not! Looks like a bird to me.

I try to be constantly aware of my surroundings while surfing. I notice swirls of water quite often. Most of the time it’s from the waves that are coming in (boils). Sometimes the timing is not with a wave. Those times are scary. One thing I always try to do is to only make strong deliberate movements in the ocean so that sharks don’t confuse me for a wounded fish. Lately there are so many logs at my usual surf spot that I probably mistake a shark as another log. Regardless I try to make strong deliberate movements

I once saw a 7ft leopard shark under me in clear water at San Diego Scripps, I just smiled as it went by because, thank God, I had just seen shark week and they mentioned how docile they are, but would have pooped bricks if I saw a great white or just a gray looking shark LOL

IB_Surfer wrote:I once saw a 7ft leopard shark under me in clear water at San Diego Scripps, I just smiled as it went by because, thank God, I had just seen shark week and they mentioned how docile they are, but would have pooped bricks if I saw a great white or just a gray looking shark LOL

Scripps is also the first place that I saw a shark on my first visit in SD. It's a breeding ground for leopard. I was super scared although it look pretty deep and far, it kept swimming towards me. Mine was tiny, probably 2-3 feet but I swear the water refraction probably makes it look much bigger than it is.

Surprised you haven't seen more sharks since you surf so much in SoCal.

I don't surf Scripps often enough to see them, over 20 yrs or so I've only seen a couple of small ones, usually the water is not clear enough to see them underneath, for all I know I might have missed a few more LOL.

It's kinda comforting, on a crowded day, to know that you can take the probability of getting bit by a shark and divide it by a hundred.

If the water is clear I feel much safer. Not because I can see what is down there... just hope the shark can see me clearly and there is no case of mistaken identity. However, when the water is really murky and you can't see your feet (like after a rain), and specially if there are seals around... no thank you!

Here is something I wrote about sharks long ago ...
I ran into sharks a lot surfing. Where I learned to surf at Kealia beach you could see sharks riding the waves when they were at around 4 to 6 feet (8 to 10 foot faces). On one occasion I was surfing alone at Kealia and a carload of mainlanders arrived and they came out to surf with me. Turns out they came directly from the airport and saw me having a good time and couldn't believe that waves that good could have only one guy out. Anyway the waves were in that range at about 4 to 5 feet where you could see the sharks riding in the waves. I took off on one wave and there was a shark in that wave which seemed to persist riding it longer than most do but I didn't think anything of it and took off anyway. I had a great ride, getting tubed a couple times and paddled back out. One of the mainlanders paddled over to me I thought to congratulate me on such a great ride which it was but instead he asked me a question. "Did that fish get you?" No clue what he was talking about I answered "What?" He said "Did that fish in that wave get you? When you took off it turned and went straight for your feet. I could have sworn it got you." I was astounded and responded "That was a shark." He asked "A baby shark?" I said "No just a small shark. Probably a gray reef shark and they don't grow real big." I decided I had enough surf and went in for the day. I think something about the new guys was attractive to the shark so it was behaving differently.

On another occasion I was out surfing alone and the only other person there was a guy was fishing on the beach. It was a beautiful day and the waves were small but really nice and while I had to wait for sets there was no competition so I caught all the waves I wanted. I was in between sets waiting for waves to come in and I noticed some movement in the water below me. A shark swam directly under my surfboard. The water was so clean I could see it was a white tip shark. I was amazed and thinking it was just as long as my surfboard (7 feet) when I realized my legs were below the board along with the shark. I pulled my legs out and put them over the board and looked around but never saw the shark again. I decided again it was time to go in. I asked the fisherman if he caught sharks there and he said he didn't and asked if I saw one. Yep sure did. I guess maybe that shark was attracted to the fisherman's bait.

I used to surf at Kalapaki and got to know the crew there. They had a routine for shark sightings which seemed odd to me. If someone saw a shark (fin) then they would scream "shark!" and everyone would go in. They would stay on the shoreline for at least 30 minutes after the last time someone saw the shark (fin). This system struck me as particularly odd since sharks rarely had their fins out of the water so not seeing a fin wasn't a good indicator of the absence of sharks. I finally decided to just stay out since it was the only way I would get the waves to myself. I did this same behavior at Wailua and Hanalei and Kalihiwai and anywhere I surfed. I figured if it stayed out of the break like they usually did I wasn't going to worry about them but if I saw sharks close up then I left the water for the day (not 30 minutes) since the shark is behaving abnormally since they usually stay out of the break. I saw sharks frequently at Pakalas and they always seemed to stay out of the break but the turtles would pop out of the water right next to me and scare the crap out of me.

The scariest shark encounter I had was when I was kneeboarding with surfer friends at Hideaways. I got to the water first and went out and swam about about 30 yards only to see the hugest shark fin I had ever seen in my life. It was headed directly toward me and suddenly I saw the head was a yard wide and quickly went through options. I could try to out swim it but was sure it would win that race, I could swim toward it but that was crazy, I could swim to the left over the shallow wana (spiny sea urchin) riddled reef but I would likely get injured and bleed maybe not a good thing with a shark nearby so the only reasonable option was to go to the right out into to open ocean and so I did. I swam strongly but not erratically. I never saw the shark again. My friends paddled out and I was yelling at them not to come out and that there was a shark and they yelled back that the break was the other way and paddled out regardless of my warning. So I joined them but made sure I kept most of them between me and the open sea. I kept counting them to be sure none got eaten and none did.

Another close encounter I had was at Mahelona Bay. My friend Mark invited me to go with him. This was my second time to that break. You had to walk over seaweed covered boulders and jump off them to get into the water. I was doing that and slipped rolling down the side of a huge seaweed covered boulder into the water. I figured what they heck no worse for wear and paddled out like normal hoping no one would notice my fall. The waves were small and the water was clean and I could see sharks swimming very rapidly past me. This was very unusual behavior. Sharks are usually cruising when I see them in the surf but these guys were speeded up and acting aggressive. Initially I wasn't sure if they were sharks since they were so fast but after a few encounters I was sure and asked Mark if he was seeing the sharks swimming real fast and he said he was and that we should go in so we did. We walked back to the car and his girlfriend who was waiting at the car started screaming something at us. I thought it sounded like she was saying "Should I call the ambulance?" Which didn't make sense. I asked Mark what she was saying and he said "Dave!!! Look at yourself!!" I looked down at my chest and I was bleeding all over the place. Apparently when I fell in the water I got scratched but didn't notice and was bleeding. The ocean washed it away so I never noticed in the water but outside it accumulated so I looked like a war victim. This undoubtedly stimulated the sharks to act differently.

One other "shark encounter" I had was at Kalihiwai. I was surfing and the guys I was sharing the break with all went in. Someone mentioned a shark so I stayed out and surfed alone and looked around. Nothing for a while and I enjoyed the waves alone then way outside I saw a huge fin. This was really enormous sticking out of the water 3 to 4 feet approximately. I figured must be some weird shark and the fin was long and narrow and black so I thought I would have an easy time going through books to figure out what kind of shark it was. When I got home I tried to look up what kind of shark it was but it didn't match any of the sharks that I had pictures or descriptions of in books. A couple days later I was reading about whales in Hawaii and saw male killer whales had a fin just exactly like that one that I saw.

This does not represent the majority of sharks I have seen surfing as most often it's just a fin outside the break while I am looking for waves

OMS, these are great stories, glad you were OK! TIL Hawaii could get very sharky.

Long before anyone surfed the sharks were riding the waves

My closest shark encounter (that I'm aware of) was deliberate. I took this picture of bull sharks in Playa del Carmen, MX while on a dive a few years ago. I never felt threatened, although they were certainly curious. We used the sound from a crumpled water bottle to attract them... apparently it's a similar sound to what a turtle makes when munching on reef... or something. After a few minutes, sharks started circling us and gradually getting closer and closer. Probably about 5-10 Bull Sharks, as Playa is a birthing spot for them. I remember on a couple of occasions, seeing a shark swimming directly at me from the corner of my eye. As soon as I turned my head and made direct eye contact, the shark would get spooked and change trajectory. An interesting wildlife encounter, not threatening, but definitely adrenaline pumping for me.

As far as sharks and surfing go, it's best not to think too much about it. One of the locals where I surf was attacked by a White in 2015 at Morro Strand Beach. It took a big exploratory bite out of her longboard. However, she still surfs daily.

Sea Lions were some of the most aggressive locals when I surfed in Westport WA. But its probably because of all the free meals that humans would give them at the Marina. Its still something to be cautious about.

BoMan, were you @ Bolinas? One day when surfing @ Duxbury Reef (Bolinas), something large, strong, & underwater brushed my legs 2x. The 2nd time, it pressed its ribs firmly against my leg as it went by. The ribs felt like Roxy Ridgeback, only larger. Based on that, figured it was a sea lion. I kept surfing.

billie_morini wrote:BoMan, were you @ Bolinas? One day when surfing @ Duxbury Reef (Bolinas), something large, strong, & underwater brushed my legs 2x. The 2nd time, it pressed its ribs firmly against my leg as it went by. The ribs felt like Roxy Ridgeback, only larger. Based on that, figured it was a sea lion. I kept surfing.

Yes! Did you notice a wake in the water? I've never seen anything like this before.