EUREKA, Calif. – It was a perfect day for surfing. Except for the shark. Jay Scrivner, a 45-year-old college English teacher, was waiting for waves off the Northern California coast near his hometown of Eureka on Sunday morning after surfing for about two hours when a great white he estimated at about 8-to-9 feet long bit his thigh and board. "Sometimes you have a feeling that the water is weird," Scrivner told The Associated Press in a phone interview from his room at Eureka's St. Joseph Hospital on Monday afternoon. "But everyone was just so happy. I was lying on my board, paddling around just waiting for a wave set." Scrivner regularly surfs at the spot near Humboldt Bay known as the Samoa Peninsula. He was aware that another surfer, Scott Stephens, survived a shark attack in the same area last year. Scriver said that "out of nowhere" he saw the shark's teeth and nose. After he was bitten, he took a swing at the great white and let out what a friend nearby described as a primordial yell. "I couldn't believe it happened," Scrivner said. "When I turned away from the shark, I said, 'Did I really get bit?' Your mind doesn't believe it." Scrivner said he did a quick inventory of his body parts and found everything was intact. A friend encouraged him to keep paddling toward the beach. Once there, friends and fellow surfers applied pressure on the wound and tied a T-shirt to stop the bleeding. "What's strange about it was how amazing the morning was, how everyone was having a good time, and then the dichotomy," he said. Scrivner was alert and conscious on shore when rescue crews got to the scene around 8:45 a.m., Samoa Peninsula Fire District Chief Dale Unea said. Scrivner, an English lecturer at College of the Redwoods who is married with two young children, said the bite wound on his left thigh did not sever an artery or damage any tendons. There was some muscle tissue damage that required about 30 stitches, but he was expected to fully recover. He said he thinks he was spared from more damage by his old surf board, which is thicker than many modern boards. "If you're going to get bitten by a shark, I had the best scenario," he said. Scrivner said he will "definitely surf again," but with trepidation, and said he's already had an anxiety dream where something was tugging on his surfboard leash. "There's just a power in the ocean," Scrivner said. "When you see a shark or get bitten by a shark, you're just made critically aware of that power."
It seems that so many attacks on surfers "come out of nowhere". It's not like you first see the dorsal fin slowly circling around you on the surface before it comes in and nails you.
Heavy stuff, we should all be thankful that this hasn't happened to us (yet). If it does happen, just pray we are as lucky as this guy. Be nice to the other people at the beach when you go, they might be the one to save your life... god willing (or whatever you believe)
I hear ya, Atom. I will say that those folks who surf up in northern Cali, OR & WA seem to have nerves of steel.
Yeah, thanks alot Yankee. I'm gonna start posting articles on drivers going up in flames on I-95. I will admit it does get spooky out there sometimes. Odds are the more time in the water, the better chances of getting bit. I spray down with a special baby oil shark repellant goo that we also use to fertilize our pot plants. So far so good.
Interesting question. Let's dig into this a bit more. I'd love to hear some logic on this subject. To me, I'd think big waves would annoy a big shark and they'd stay clear of the break. Then again, if you're in an area that has a lot of seals, waves could keep them out of the water, which means less food for Mr GW, which means he might eat you. On the contrary, bigger waves means you're in deeper water... I hate the eerie feeling you sometimes get when you're waiting for a set and it's just a little too quiet...I'm thinking this is when Padding Jetty Bear starts talking to seagulls.
Yeah, I would think that the man in the grey suit wouldn't particularly like getting pounded by waves when it's going off. Then again, maybe when it's nice and glassy, he likes to cruise through the outside breakers. I know he isn't particularly fond of the east coast, however a couple weeks ago, a seal decided he'd say hello. No joke, I was out alone and saw him pop up like 50 feet away and I was like, damn, I think he is looking directly at me. He went under and I KNEW he was gonna try and get a closer look... A minute later, he pops his head up again and was half the distance, staring directly into my soul. Down he goes. All of a sudden, boom, three feet from my face, looking at me with those big black eye balls. I yelled at him, told him he was really freaking me out, so off he swam, probably grinning ear hole to ear hole knowing he scared the **** out of me. Seals creep me out.
Last Friday I got out because I saw what looked to be a good sized Hammerhead dorsal just past the breakers. It was huge (2ft fin) and upright and the way it submurged was slow. I went back in after a few minutes, but just couldn't enjoy myself. This is the sharkiest time of the year here in FL.
I would think that when it's firing we are more vulnerable as we tend to hit the water more often and are going through the spin cycle a lot more and as a result we are scrambling to get back on our boards and back out past the breakers and into another wave, during all this your heart rate is increased moreso than when it's calm out, and you know they can sense that sh*t. Sharks can swim inside the waves and are not at all awkward in the water, as it is their domain and they are supreme water animals, we humans are as akwward as it gets in the water compared to other creatures, even the best of swimmers /surfers probably appear as one of the weakest links in that domain. With crashing surf comes other confused and disoriented animals as well, so they probably use that to their advantage when hitting pods of bait fish, seals, etc., this is all speculation of course
