Re: Vid: Great White Shark Stalks A Paddle Boarder.
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: beck.jamie</div><div class="ubbcode-body">When I surf I try not to think about that stuff. If I did I wouldn't surf. Although, I guess I won't be surfing that much anymore since I now live in Texas.
Jamie </div></div>
Funny you bring that up. Let me preface that I have a shark phobia. Once you are in the water, you don't think about that stuff anymore. or atleast you try your best not to. However, I used to surf with my brother a few miles down from Santa Cruz. It doesn't help that 300 yards out, there is a stretch of land that is home to a couple hundred seal lions. I know...not smart...but it's one of the spots that aren't crowded. It's also known to have a lot of great whites in the area. Back in the 90's some guy got mauled by a great white a few miles down from where we were. At our spot there is a lot of sea life in that area, especially birds. The sea lions there are super friendly and on a few occasions would swim up to literally 2 feet away from you and pop their heads up to see what you are doing.
Then one day as we are waiting for a good set to come in, we noticed that it got DEAD quiet. I mean creepy/errie quiet. We looked around and all the birds/sea otters/sea lions were gone. You just get that REALLY bad feeling in your stomach. The crazy thing was that it hit both my brother and I at the same time. It was as if it was scripted. We paddled back in that moment but I could have sworn that there must have been SOMETHING in the water under us to scare away all the animal life. I still get the shivers thinking about it.