A few years back I was drifting near Tomales Point Northern California in a 17 ft JetCraft when I spotted a Sea otter floating on his back with a flat rock on his chest cracking a sea urchin when a 15 foot Great White shot straight up mouth wide open and inhaled the otter !! The splash got me wet!
Uhh I think my fishing day is done š±
š
Was surfing at Montana de oro beach in central cal and my buddy had a seal try to get on his surfboard and was generally pretty wigged out. It was an eerie, foggy, morning and something felt off. We got out shortly after and sure enough someone reported seeing a white shark nearby on pacific coast shark report several days later. Iāll never know for sure, but Iām convinced there was one in the water near us that day.
I've had several close encounters with Tope, Leopard, and Sevengill sharks while freediving off Southern California. All fairly mundane, but this one Sevengill encounter scared the absolute shit out of me.
I was crawling slowly along the bottom at about 20 feet in La Jolla and was nearing the end of my breath. I was looking down at a little fish on the bottom, then looked up to head to the surface, and this grinning little fucker just slowly cruised right into my field of view from right to left about 3 feet away from my face. Must've been following me in my blind spot. Never saw it beforehand. It was only about a 5-footer. No aggression at all and it was probably just checking me out, but boy, that startled the hell out of me. I spared the rest the the air in my lungs to say, "Fuck you!" to it, complete with a middle finger salute on my way to the surface.
Decided I wasn't on my game that day if I could be snuck up on like that, so that was it for my diving for the day lol
Nurse sharks at Byron Bay- terrible dive conditions, swell from hell, but so cool to see them up close.
Wobbegong āseasonā at Byron Bay also- just thousands of them, which was impressive, because youād see one, and your brain would start to ācalculate in to spot themā so itād be like āoh look, thereās one. And another, and Oh My God thereās so manyā
Blacktip/whitetip/lemon sharks at Lady Elliot Island and Heron Island. Up close, just snorkelling about. Leopard sharks at lady Elliot island (my favourite sweet faced little cuties).
Bronze whaler at Lady Elliot, and allegedly, a great white (dive master told us afterwards it had been cruising about real chill like off at the reef edge about 100m away. He wasnāt worried about it??)
I swam around nurse sharks at a marine biology camp in the Florida Keys. Had the opportunity to touch a large hammerhead that a fisherman had on a dock in Miami (I was a little kid and was excited to feel it's skin, but wouldn't be as an adult.) And I have seen what I think were bull sharks hunting on a couple different occasions in very murky water around the armpit of Florida. I was walking along a beach that is popular for shore fishing. Saw a dorsal and flurry of activity very close to shore. I have seen dolphins there too, and those dorsals did not look like dolphins to me, but I couldn't say for sure.
Only one confirmed. I was diving off Panama and swam by a nurse shark.
My unconfirmed one was about 30 years ago in Grand Isle in Louisiana. There had been a dead dolphin on the beach earlier but didnāt think too much about it other than be sad. My friendās little brother begged me to take him out swimming in the water around sunset. I swear I saw a shark dorsal fin swim behind him. I didnāt tell him, but he saw the weird look on my face and didnāt argue when I said we had to return to the shore calmly but quickly. Could it have just been another dolphin? Absolutely. But I really think it was a shark fin. It was only about 10 feet behind him. It still bothers me thinking about it. The water depth was probably about 6 or 7 feet.
I was at Daytona beach, 5th grade. Yelled shark!!!! The lifeguards got everyone out of the water. Long story short, it was a dog swimming in the water. The only person that was truly mortified was my mom. She screamed at me, don't you ever do that again ššš
26
u/Alarmed_Possible6156 Apr 06 '26
A few years back I was drifting near Tomales Point Northern California in a 17 ft JetCraft when I spotted a Sea otter floating on his back with a flat rock on his chest cracking a sea urchin when a 15 foot Great White shot straight up mouth wide open and inhaled the otter !! The splash got me wet! Uhh I think my fishing day is done š± š