A month ago i wrote how i’d heard that there was a shark sighting in Westport by a bunch of people. At the time i thought it to be a bunch of bull shiz but later heard from a legit source that it was indeed legit.
Below is an email i received from a friend who actually saw the shark.
“Hey man,
I’m not sure what to say on this one as I still don’t know what to think. I have always thought of W-Port as the Shark free zone of the NW. Living and surfing in Oregon for years, I always knew that there might be sharks in the water but I have never even thought about it in Westport.
Thursday before last, a friend and I rallied out early in the AM cause Mag. SeaW. was claiming 4 star surf potential. We got there and it was kind of blown out and crappy, so we surfed for a bit then killed the day hanging out in hopes that the evening session would be better. Sure enough, it started to clean up around 4pm, the sun came out and we headed out in the water. Four of us (myself, YYY and two local kids)sat in the same area, waiting for waves. As I was paddling back out from a short ride, I saw that all 3 of the guys were looking at something and I looked over and caught glimpses of something between waves. I got closer, sat up on my board and heard one of the local kids say “holy shit, it is a shark!”. I thought there was no way, so I sat there looking at a big ass fin (about 18″), facing us and sticking up out of the water about 20 yds away. I sat there looking at it for a while because I was in disbelief and thought it must be something else. Reality set in when I saw the vertical tail fin breeching the water behind the dorsal. It just hovered there facing out direction, basically motion less. That’s when the panic stroke set in to get in to the sand (about 80 yds away). As soon as we started paddling, when looking over our shoulders, it was gone. When we got to waist deep water YYY and I looked back out and saw the fin again in about the same spot.The local kids came over and said that they surf there all the time and have never seen anything like that.
Here is what didn’t make sense to me, the dorsal had a pretty serious curve to it (like an Orca) but there was a vertical tail fin which whales & dolphins don’t have.
I didn’t want to believe it was a shark and still don’t. Being that I didn’t believe, I didn’t say anything to anybody till we left. After talking to a couple people about it, I realized that I would feel terrible if I didn’t say anything and someone got bit. So I called the W-port authorities, told them the story and asked them to pass the word to whoever might be able to keep an eye out for whatever it might have been.
I don’t know if it was a shark but I do know that it was a big ass fish (at least 10′) with a dorsal and tail fin hovering out of the water. I think I am just going to write it off as a group hallucination and continue to believe that the waters of Westport are shark free.
Feel free to drop me a line if you have any further questions.
Take care,
XXX”
BOTH THESE DUDES GOT FUCKT UP CHROMOSOMES XXX AND YYY SO WHO GIVES A RIP (TIDE) IF THEY GOT GOBBLT BY SOME FISH
PS HAS THERE EVER BEEN A CASE OF A LOCAL TYING SHINEY STREAMERS ON A HAOLE’S SURFINGBOARD OR MAYBE DIPPING THIEYRE WETSUIT IN DEERPISS SO THEY GET ATTAKKKT? IF NOT, PUT THAT IN A MOVIE.
GREAT SITE, BY THE WAY.
Outside of packing a glock in a wetsuit, how about this. In Washington a lot of surf spots have firework stands near them. If one knew the effective sound db that scares sharks, and how far it scares them away; one could come up with a formula to the number of m-80′s or m-1000′s you need to throw into the water per time surfing. I think you would need data on how far a “dangerous” shark can swim over time, the db of an m-1000 and how far it carries with our average water temperature, and so on. I bet you will never see a shark if you throw an m-1000 in the water every hour around where your surfing. Kinda like avy control but shark control. Chances are you would blow your arm off, but at least there would be no sharks around and you might catch some fish.
M-1G’s?! Sweet jesus. I bet the shock of that would create a surfable wave.
Maybe something like this:
I was thinking “bent dorsal fin???”, but then I found this on the interweb -
http://www.whitesharktrust.org/pages/supportashark.html
was the fin bent as in curved towards the back or bent off the top to the right or left?
did the surfer come to the conclusion after the sighting that it was a vertical fin? or did realize that in the moment?
was the dorsal and tail fin seen at the same time? perhaps the object turned causing the tail fin to appear that it was vertical.
if several people saw a shark at the same time out in the water, you would expect someone would immediately warn others. funny how groups of people react.
that dynamite video is some fake as sh*t.
don’t know about a shark but we did see a JR
What’s up suckas!!! Writing this e-mail from San Juan in Nicaragua. Erica and I are unofficially married now as of last night. The house we got is insane and close to their most popular beach break, maderas, cool spot but many better breaks close by. Just got in from a place called Yankee beach, south of San Juan. Unreal point break, super hollow, just over head high…………..by myself. I thought I was dreaming. Super fun trip so far, talk to you all soon.
sick! congrats on being unofficial Clemmy
nice work clem!!!!!!
Word up Clem. Congrats and stay safe. Enjoy that warm water while you can. You got some cold water waiting for you up here.
another one bites the dust sucka welcome to the club loser
yeah clem, you making it to playa yankee is way more than most tourist pull off. be careful down there tho. there’s been a lot of break ins. pretty easy to do seeing how there’s nothing around (including people which is rad for surf) and the cars can be just outta sight depending on swell. i met some doods the day after they were held up at gun point (shotguns) and robbed when they tried to camp there.
have you scored ramonso yet? that place can go off and not many peeps either. how about playa mango? you prolly haven’t heard of that one. you need an insane 4×4 and some skills to drive it. if you’re standing on the beach of ramonso facing the water, look up to the left at the ridge. there’s a road that winds up and around and down the other side. too far to walk and usually too gnarly to drive so best of luck. the road starts back near the starting of the vaca homes by the entrance. if the guard at the entrance gives you grief to get in the ramonso ‘resort’, tell him you’re gonna potentially stay there and eat at the restaurant. the road leaving the halfway built ‘resort’ can be partially washed out and over grown but just take the path of least resistance.haha. drive until you see a fence down on your right. figure it out from there. you shoulda hit me up before you went homeslice. absolutely never anyone there but the homies you showed up with. super consistent and it whomps!
if i was you, i would just hang out at popoyo the INTIRE time! sickest, most consistent peeling wave machine in central america.
i guess not long ago some dood was gutted and died at madaras. some homies have moved away recently due to lameness. prolly similar to the early days of tamarindo. slowly turning into a meat head/frat boy hot spot. plus, ever since the sand bars changed there the waves aren’t nearly as consistent.
safe travels and i hope your waves are steep and hollow.
Nice Clem! Have fun the rest of your trip~
Shark attack.
http://www.sharkresearchcommittee.com/unprovoked_surfer.htm
The first authenticated shark attack for the state of Washington during the Twentieth Century would occur on Wednesday, 12 April 1989. It was probably like any other day to surfer Robert Harms as he sat on his purple surfboard 100 m off Pacific Beach, near Aberdeen in western Washington (47 12.7′N; 124 12.6′W). McCosker and Lea reported that Harms, while lying prone on his board at 1045 hrs, felt a sharp pain in his left arm. The surfer resisted a slight tug on his arm, instinctively pulling it away from whatever had grabbed it. A large swirl next to his surfboard drew Harms’ attention to a large gray fish. He gathered himself back onto his board and headed for shore.
Thanks Sean…..yeah, we are definitely taking it pretty cautious down here. The feeling from most of the people we’ve talked to say its getting a little better (not worse) than the past year or so. We’ve been pretty lucky though. Our rental got a dead battery at the bottom of Yankee the other day, kind of sketchy. We are sharing a boat Monday to check out Las Salenas and Popoyo. It does sound a bit mellower than around here, but even San Juan is a nice change from the daily grind. I’ve scored some really good days, but sometimes I look at the beach breaks, and think that there has to be something wrong. Lots of closeouts. Maderas is definitely not anything special. We hung out there a couple times because its close. It makes sense that the sand bars might be messed up. Hope you guys are getting some fun days at La Push, looking forward to pulling on that wetsuit soon.
its a basking shark
http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/Gallery/Descript/baskingshark/baskingshark.html
I just wanted to say I saw what I thought was a shark in november of 2008. I know it’s been awhile and I was the only one to see it and I can’t remember exactly what it looked like. I’d say it stuck out of the water about a 8-12″ or so, but it was a good 50 yards in front of me. I was on a jetski, south of westport in grayland. I only saw the one main fin sticking out. I saw it, turned around and came back in. I went back out after a bit and told myself it was a dolphin and I’m sure most sharks are not interested in eating two stroke motors driving around like crazy. What I can remember of the fin was the normal peak coming off his back, maybe more curved than the white shark pics posted above. Instead of the it coming straight back down to the back, it kind of curved back towards the front a tiny bit. After looking at local sharks, maybe a blue shark? I have no idea, though I did see a dorsal fin for sure.
Check out this map, we used the grayland access that day: http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=100432531473956558639.0004378be840da134e98a&ll=46.847982,-124.105339&spn=0.13666,0.31517&z=12