This past weekend, a pair of kayakers near Cape Cod got a more exciting paddle than they bargained for when they had an encounter with a great white shark.
A mortally wounded seal, bleeding heavily, broke the surface and headed straight towards them, trailed by a large black fin. At one point, the seal surfaced as close as five feet to their kayaks. They followed their pre-arranged shark plan and rafted up to make themselves look bigger, then paddled quickly away when the shark disappeared.
So all's well that ends all. Except for the seal, I suppose.
That's kind of scary, although I don't think sharks take bites out of kayaks very often, I don't think they taste very good.
ReplyDeleteScary indeed! I haven't heard of many shark encounters with kayaks, though John did read of one fellow who with his friend had to land their kayaks precipitously on the shore of a bird preserve in California somewhere. The park ranger came up to tell them they couldn't land here, and the paddlers pointed at the one kayak -- missing a great bite taken out of the stern! What issue was that, John?
ReplyDeleteA few years ago I was given a book called Sea Kayaker: Deep Trouble, a collection of true stories of when kayaking goes wrong from Sea Kayaker magazine. I blindly opened the book and the first sentence I read was, "Mike watches as a huge great white shark lunges up through the surface. It latches its jaws around the kayak, just behind me, and then blasts half of its great hulk out of the water."
ReplyDeleteThe shark eventually let go, fiberglass does not taste like seal, I guess.