Thursday, August 12, 2010

Shark Week

This guy standing with me...



...just got this amazing footage...

Me my Shark and I from Chuck Patterson on Vimeo.



That would be Chuck Patterson...and that footage was all over MSNBC and the Today Show.

Chuck's comments on StandupZone Forum:
"Ya, that was a pretty cool experience for sure. Jamie Mitchell and i were SUP surfing there and we told him about the regular shark sightings and sure enough within 5 minutes we see a 7'-8' Mako circling several of us off and on for 20 minutes. He had never seen a shark so close before.
Long story short I told Jamie that i would paddle out the next day and get a photo of his little buddy for him. The minute i paddled to the outside peak (about 250 yards off shore) where we saw them the other day I was pleasantly surprised by the shark when it swished it's tail into my board almost knocking me down. I quickly grabbed my GoPro camera that I mounted on an 8' pole and took a couple pictures and then got some video of it before it before it slowly swam away. i have to admit i was a little spooked and wondered if I was a little crazy to try to get a photo, but watching it swim circles around my board was so intriguing that I was instantly captivated. I spoke to a couple marine biologists that viewed my footage and they all said it was a Juvenile Great White shark. SanOnofre is a known breeding ground and the sharks have always been there, but never seen until we started SUP surfing there regularly.

Have fun, Be smart & safe out there.
Aloha,
Chuck P"

The family and I were watching some of Shark Week on Discovery Channel last week and they had some absolutely amazing footage...but this is surreal when you consider Chuck was on his SUP board getting that footage just offshore from San Onofre Beach, SoCal.

1 comment:

rdm said...

Reminds me of the last obx trip with Mark and Bill. Mark and I sup surfed next to the avon peir all day and I saw large sharks off and on the whole time. Luckily they seemed to stay off the end of the pier. Purhaps you are less appealing to them if you shit yourself?