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A Brush with Nature... a close call

Blogs > dGHaiL
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dGHaiL
Profile Blog Joined April 2011
United States177 Posts
July 08 2012 03:08 GMT
#1
For the week of summer shutdown (nearly my entire family works for the car companies, with the exception of myself), my family rented a house along the beach in North Carolina, near a beautiful beach called Kure Beach. For those of you who are familiar, it's in the southern part of NC.

We also invited the distant cousins (with younger children, 9 and 7) and another set of cousins with young children (7 and 5). Two sets of grandparents, my girlfriend, my sister, and her boyfriend. Needless to say, there were a lot of us with rather varying interests. What I really wanted to do, though, was get a chance to catch some waves.

I'm not a huge surfer - I live in Michigan for crying out loud. And it always takes me awhile to get the hang of it again once I do get back in some water with nice waves. But I bought myself a nice board in Hawaii, and some surfing gear when I spent some time in California. I'd say I'm more of a huge fan than an expert. But I've spent probably a good few months of the last 10 years learning to surf and teaching myself to surf after a few lessons. I swam in high school and swim often in college, so I'm a pretty strong swimmer. I enjoy my time in the ocean, tl;dr.

But this afternoon I had an experience I don't think I'll soon forget. It has been unbelievably warm this week - upper 90's and 100's, meaning the water has been absolutely amazing. Around 8am EST I woke up, grabbed some breakfast, kissed my GF goodbye (they were going out for a long day of shopping), grabbed my board and hopped in my dad's truck to find a good spot for some waves down the beach.

The second day of the trip, I was lucky enough to run into a shoal (shoal?) of dolphins, and while I didn't get to technically swim with them, I boarded through them and around them for awhile as they chased fish through my surfing area. A bunch of local surfers seemed less interested in the dolphins than they did the waves, so I assumed they were a natural occurrence. This seems unimportant now but comes up again later, I promise.

Around noon, the surf was dying down and I was getting pretty tired, so I ran into a local fish fry to grab some lunch. (Fried tilapia, anyone? delicious). Around 1 I left and called my GF to see how she was doing. Apparently ALL of the cousins decided to come with them on their shopping adventure. I later got a text from her that said "I'd rather have ornery kids than weird ones." (One set of kids is really ornery and goofy, and the other kids are a little ... different). Her reasoning was that you can punish an ornery kid for being ornery and get him to stop, but weird kids will always be weird. Whatever, girl!

Anyways, I paddled back out around 1:30. I was having a great time and catching some awesome waves until I got absolutely pummeled when I rolled my left ankle trying to stand on a huge whitecap. My board slipped out from underneath me and I fell backwards, head first, into the waves. I had injured that same ankle a few days ago playing tennis (throughout my high school and college career it has always been a little flimsy), so I had attached my board around my right ankle instead of my left. Instinctively when I went under, I kicked my RIGHT foot to right myself, as that is the ankle that is usually not attached to my board. Unfortunately, since I had forgotten, my board came skimming right across the top of the water and connected with my forehead as I resurfaced.

I was actually seeing stars as I got mauled by another wave and went under again. I finally came up, clinging to my board for dear life, and felt my forehead. I had a pretty nice cut just above my left eyebrow. My hand was absolutely covered in blood. I clambered back onto my board and began paddling back to shore. Then I noticed that I was almost totally alone. The only surfers near me were at least three hundred yards down shore, and the immediate shore was about a hundred yards off.

Then I saw it... or at least I thought a did. A fin!

Initially, my heart jumped. Neat! More dolphins! I assumed another shoal was passing through, maybe even the same one I had seen a few days ago. Like an idiot, I reached my hand into the water and thrashed it around a bit, hoping I'd attract their attention. Then I saw it again. But this time, I saw what it was connected to. It swam about ten feet to my right, and I instantly identified it as a bull shark. Big nasty fucking teeth and about as long as my board - my board is 8 feet, to give you some perspective - I could see it looking at me from just under the water. I pulled my feet onto my board only to find that I was REALLY unstable in the waves, so I gently put them back in the water, all while keeping my eyes on this fucker.

My first idea was to fucking scream at the top of my lungs, but I was really afraid I would piss it off. So I sat there on my board, watching it swim. It swam off in front of me. It didn't really seem all that interested. I laid down flat on my board and slowly began to paddle towards shore.

At this point, I could make the story more interesting. I could spice it up a bit by telling you how I valiantly defended myself. But I was fucking shitting in my pants. I could feel my heart pounding against my board. It went underwater and I totally lost sight of it. Rule #1 for getting away from a shark: Know where the hell it is.

I broke rule #1.

About thirty seconds later, I caught a wave and rode it into a patch of water where I could finally see the bottom. I stood up. About three feet deep. I've never run so fast in my entire life. I told the nearby lifeguard on duty what I saw, and he called everyone out of the water as far as his voice could reach, while he radio'd in the incident.

Just thankful I'm still here to post. Hope you all are enjoying your summer.

Signing off,

Steve Irwin the II



****
Th1rdEye
Profile Blog Joined December 2006
United States1074 Posts
July 08 2012 03:44 GMT
#2
wholly fucking shit man.

great story.. that's so scary lol. THATS WHY I HATE THE OCEAN! (not really, but it fits)
from the days of: TheMarine [NC]...YellOw [H.O.T.]-Forever99 OgOgO [_MuMyung_] ChRh PlayGrrrr.... SlayerS_`BoxeR` [Oops]Reach [ReD]NaDa [DF]zergboy..!! Pusan[S.G] Nal_rA GARIMTO SSamJJang ChoJJa JinSu Silent_Control iloveoov H_PauL_WII JulyZerg [DaK]JoYo
TSBspartacus
Profile Joined October 2011
England1046 Posts
July 08 2012 03:47 GMT
#3
sick story, you should've jumped off your board and fought the shark and then made a necklace out of its teeth though
Heh_
Profile Blog Joined April 2012
Singapore2712 Posts
July 08 2012 04:07 GMT
#4
Holy shit. And I heard that sharks go into a frenzy at the smell of the blood coming out of your forehead.

I've seen the devastation that boards can do to your head. I got a friend who've sustained a huge gash to the back of his head from his snowboard. And many others with various injuries from/while snowboarding.
=Þ
dGHaiL
Profile Blog Joined April 2011
United States177 Posts
July 08 2012 04:12 GMT
#5
On July 08 2012 13:07 Heh_ wrote:
Holy shit. And I heard that sharks go into a frenzy at the smell of the blood coming out of your forehead.


Hah! I totally forgot to address that part. I wasn't even thinking about it. I guess he wasn't all that hungry, because the hand I put in the water was the same one I used to wipe my forehead.

It turned out to be just a nice big black eye. I could post the pics my GF took when I get ahold of her camera.
Hnnngg
Profile Joined June 2011
United States1101 Posts
July 08 2012 04:27 GMT
#6
On July 08 2012 12:47 TSBspartacus wrote:
sick story, you should've jumped off your board and fought the shark and then made a necklace out of its teeth though


This, you missed an opportunity for glory.

I must say that I am disappointed in you. You're supposed to grab life by the haunches and hump it into submission.

Imagine, taking up a shark's severed head to a lifeguard and saying, "Take it easy, I got this."
AnachronisticAnarchy
Profile Blog Joined July 2011
United States2957 Posts
July 08 2012 04:35 GMT
#7
Cool story bro.

No seriously, cool story. Not every day you face a serious risk of drowning only to come face to face with a freaking bull shark while your head is gushing blood. I must admit though, I'd take the unfortunate hit to the face over an unfortunately interested shark any day.
"How are you?" "I am fine, because it is not normal to scream in pain."
r.Evo
Profile Joined August 2006
Germany14080 Posts
July 08 2012 04:46 GMT
#8
Damn. One of those blog with an actual climax. =S

Thanks for sharing, lucky man.
"We don't make mistakes here, we call it happy little accidents." ~Bob Ross
nttea
Profile Blog Joined July 2008
Sweden4353 Posts
July 08 2012 04:47 GMT
#9
Whoah great story caused me to read up on wikipedia on bull sharks and shark attacks and i found this gem on how to prevent getting attacked:
"avoiding swimming alone, always being near a group of people, and if possible, avoiding being at the edge of the group"
lmao ^^
Epishade
Profile Blog Joined November 2011
United States2267 Posts
July 08 2012 05:12 GMT
#10
Great story. I've never surfed in my life and I'm afraid of the ocean. Always think that something like what you described would happen to me if I did haha. I suppose it doesn't matter since I never go to the beach though. Idk what I would do if I had a shark swimmin underneath my board.
Pinhead Larry in the streets, Dirty Dan in the sheets.
surfinbird1
Profile Joined September 2009
Germany999 Posts
July 08 2012 08:12 GMT
#11
There is no shame in being afraid of a motherfucking shark! That's a natural killing machine, so better be safe than sorry.
life of lively to live to life of full life thx to shield battery
Masamune
Profile Joined January 2007
Canada3401 Posts
July 08 2012 10:55 GMT
#12
wow, nice story! Glad that you're okay!! If I were in your shoes I would have probably drowned and/or have been eaten by that shark just in sheer panic.

What did all your relatives say after you told them about it? It's probably gonna be a cool story that will be repeated 100s of times throughout your life now
dGHaiL
Profile Blog Joined April 2011
United States177 Posts
July 09 2012 01:23 GMT
#13
On July 08 2012 13:47 nttea wrote:
Whoah great story caused me to read up on wikipedia on bull sharks and shark attacks and i found this gem on how to prevent getting attacked:
"avoiding swimming alone, always being near a group of people, and if possible, avoiding being at the edge of the group"
lmao ^^


Hahaha. Unfortunately, I failed at all of those prevention methods.
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