Marine Sanctuary would have a positive impact on surfing - we could get some kelp beds replanted, those groom the waves real nice, would give us more snorkelling fun, and may allow us to address the storm drains and runoff into Will Rogers in a better way. It should make it a no fishing zone, which is a plus for surfers....and...I would say that would be smart as the sharks will be less likely to grow up associating boats with food, which would be great. 

It is illegal to hunt or kill GWS, so - your spear gun wouldn't offer you much protection from the authorities. Also, if one mistook you for dinner - it wouldn't let you see it. It would go stealth and nail you before you saw it coming. It's not like um....dealing with something like a pitbull. There is this huge misunderstanding that they are aggressive and attack people like dogs or something.

I think that the really truly wild ones (aussie's) can be like that on occasion, but...not our kids.

The mothers are like....mini buses. They drop the kids off and split. They have no part on their upbringing other than finding a good place for them to grow up. Mom has Sunset dialed in, and she keeps coming back cos she knows it's a successful place for them to grow up. There is NOT enough food for the adults in the santa monica bay. Period. They can go a month without a sea lion meal. I think that they must be well fed before they make the trip down to drop off the kids, like pick up a sea lion on the central coast or 50 miles offshore on one of the islands. They shouldn't be hungry or wanting to eat when they could eat their pups. I think they have no need to eat and every reason not to be hungry when they come into the bay.

Think of it like taking a trip where you know their isn't any food for you. The central coast has too many sea lions. They eat before they get here. They really are all concerned about fish and pups and maybe breeding... 

the santa monica bay - it's not about dinner for the adults.

It was like lake pacific - no surf. The shark was well inside where the surf zone normally is. Anyway, they were adamant it was a shark - it wasn't a dolphin. Later, when I would find say, a dead spiny dog shark with it's head missing and something bigger than our local harbor seal took a bite out of - I figured it was the shark. The lifeguards were aware that sharks did breach at Sunset but I think they thought they were Mako's at that point. I started looking up sharks that could be at sunset at that point. So, that was 10 years ago. It was in the late spring.

I was sitting on my bodyboard at Dos Banos on august 2nd 2009, and a GWS pup breached at the buoy within maybe 30 - 40 yards from me.  Lots of white water around pec fins as it came out.. Unmistakable rolling to the side, huge splash on touch down. It was one of the bigger pups. At least 7'. A number of other people saw it.

I have experienced numerous boils that suddenly appear near me but I always have to back track and wonder if it was from one of my own fins. In Humboldt, people watch for the boils. When they turn quickly away from you - their tails make a boil in the water. It just means they got curious or couldn't see well and suddenly got too close for their comfort and took off. They do that. I think a lot more than people know.

One november I was at County Line and I went out past the lineup. We had a storm coming on and, in fact, it started raining not long after, and...I was just hanging in the water - legs hanging down with fins on...and...lol...once I recovered from my paddle out....I decided to go in and join the line-up. Well...lol....I raised my left leg/fin to start kicking in and....my whole foot/fin went straight up against a very solid big creature.  It didn't budge. I was like "oh...sh*t....sorry sorry sorry for encroaching on you" and I (this is a pattern) very very slowly started to kick away as gentle as possible.  So we caught a bunch of waves and it started to rain and we got out...around Zuma - coming back...all of a sudden, I went "What in the world was that!!". I'll never know...it was BIG, it wasn't afraid of me, it had clearly been observing me and didnt mind that I touched it...most likely, a bull elephant seal....or a whale. I think if it had been a GWS, I would have scared the sh*t out of it on contact and it would have immediately fled.

The shark in your photo looks like the one I saw breach and in about the same area. At least 7 feet. It isn't a 5-6'. For one thing, it's too fat around the tail section. When they are 5'-7' feet they really are slender...as they age, they start getting a bit plump and by the time they grow up - they are FAT. Also, the distance between the dorsal fin and the tail is longer than the pups. 

The one that was on Ch. 5 had a shorter distance between the tail and dorsal.

Anyway, I am pretty excited about the 16 -18 footer. I would appear to be Mom and friends checking in on the kids or....they are breeding there, too. So interesting. They are SO smart.

I suspect we have one female in her reproductive prime, and all the pups are hers from different years. Maybe 2 a year. There have been a growing number of sightings since 2005. I think they may stay around for maybe 3 years? 7 were counted last year and 5 this year. 

I grew up in Manhattan Beach in the 60's with the kids of all the major board shapers - Bing, Webber, Jacobs, and so on - we all went to school and the beach together. Then, I moved up to Humboldt County. As a teen I worked on salmon and albacore boats off the PNW. Saw my share of sharks there, and am dialed into the scene to this day there. Rogue waves and rips are more of a hazard than the realllly BIG adult GWS there.

I think that, in California, on the most part, we have highly a socialized GWS population. They grow up and live around humans. Down under and in South Africa, they can grow up really wild and unsocialized.

Ours at Sunset are extremely well socialized GWS and are basically, domestic....and they are more than aware of us. Perfectly aware of us.

If Kat is the woman who was swimming off the Bel Air Bay Club - 150 yards offshore, wearing lots of jewelry and lost a ring to a large fish that pulled it off....she should talk to Bethany Hamilton, who swears it was her shiny ripcurl watch that made the tiger shark go after her arm.

Still, she could have had a large Halibut clamp down on her hand and steal her ring...From the report I remember - she never saw what kind of a fish it was, and there are also halibut out there. I know she was scratched but have no idea what size or kind of teeth may have been applied. 

They do eat SHINY FISH. 

Best advice at Sunset is don't dress up like a fishing lure.

I have worn out boards and fins at Sunset. I have been in the water there hundreds or times.

I am sure I have been checked out more times than anyone has noticed....

Also, before the breaching started - I always had a weird "i'm not alone" feeling when going out to the old buoy....sometimes to collect balloons and floating plastic...so after I saw the one breach - which is most likely the exact same one in your photo - I went "yep !". I never liked going out there for that reason...SUP or surfboard or Kayak would be different....but swimming or with a bodyboard...too exposed.

That's their space...best to respect it.  The buoy should say caution "children at play"

  Great photos of Sunset, plenty of memories and great waves.

I surfed there back in the late sixties through the seventies.

   I remember Mark Jojoba we caught many great sessions

together. What has Mark been doing? Still surfing?

  Hiro

As you seem to know an awful lot about the local sharks off Sunset,

I feel the need to publicly ask you a few questions...

 

How many sharks have you personally seen swim by you in the water?

If any, when was that, how large was the shark, and were was the location?

 

Have you ever spoken with Kat Zinner?

She is the only gal that I personally know of whom  had her hand bitten by a shark in summer of 2007...

 

How many sharks have you seen breach in the local waters off Sunset?

If any, where was it, when was it, date and time of day, and how large would you estimate the shark's size to be...

 

So after asking you these questions, I pose another 1 to you,

for this is 1 I hear all the time...

Do you BELIEVE that the Great White Shark photographic sequence I shot last year in October 2009 is real,

or was it created by Photoshop, as Tom, the surf teacher from SurfingLA.com believes?

 

Below, I present the photographic comparision below for the 1st time in a public forum..

This shark breached at 8:14:17 am.

 

If you believe it to be real, how big do you think the shark is?

Many have told me they believe that it was only 5 - 6 feet...

I told many people, after I presented this sequence to the public,

that the shark was near the size of my 10 foot kayak. Many DO NOT believe me...

 

This guy I photographed below,

working out with a buddy paddling behind him -(not shown),

paddled up to the old pink/orange buoy,

turned around and paddled back towards the BABC at 8:38:06 am,

only 23:49 minutes later after the shark had breached

and as the sun started poking it's head outta the clouds...

 

And so, after comparing these 2 photographs,

would you agree that this shark was near the size of my 10 foot kayak,

or is it an infant 5-6 footer as many have said?

 

Anyways, thanks for your input Birdie,

and sharing your knowledge of sharks!

Randy

 

PS-I agree,

Sunset and it's surrounding beaches should be included in the upcoming MLPA proposal...

 

PSS-There are NO bull sharks in the Sunset area, as far as I can tell.

What with the sometimes murky water there, people WOULD be getting their feet bitten, I bet...

I was at the point 10 days ago, paddling out after a nice ride.  There is a guy on a long board about 6 ft to my right and in front of me maybe another 6 ft.  A wave comes towards us, not a big wave, just a soft 3ft or 4ft Sunset mush wave.  Longboard dude takes a look at me, then jumps off his board in a panic so as to avoid the horror of the 4ft mushball.  Rather than duck dive my board, I am now completely focus on the trajectory of the dude's board turned missile. The result is a broken nose, then a nasty sea born bacterial infection which ended with me in the hospital.  The other guy was completely oblivious to what he had done, clearly clueless about what happens when you ditch a 9ft board with a 9ft leash.  By the time I got back out and cleaned the blood off myself, the idiot had disappeared. 

The thing is, this seems to be the normal way that people deal with oncoming white water out there. Jump and duck.  This is not the way I was taught to surf.  I learned that only in an emergency do you ditch.  I can imagine no wave at Sunset being in the emergency category.

Please, if you see people doing this, tell them there are other techniques besides trying to kill your fellow surfers with your tanker.  Sunset is such a chill break, which is nice, but sometimes letting the idiots know they are being idiots will have them think twice about doing it again.

The last bit of this that people should know is about the bacterial infection.  After my ER visit, I got a call from the CDC of all people wanting to know where I had been.  The type of bacteria that attacked me is only found in "dirty" water, and needs an open wound, like a broken nose, to take hold.  Although Sunset gets an A rating at Heal the Bay, there seems to be some pretty nasty stuff that lives in that water.  Beware.

We don't have bull sharks and I'm glad we don't.

Bulls can be territorial and are known to be aggressive towards humans.

We have baby GWS, and there can be mako's and threshers and leopards...and spiny dog sharks and sand sharks...

The baby GWS feed on grunion, mackerel, sardines, halibut, sting rays, small sharks, lobsters, and the occasional floating bird.

Sunset has been a successful nursery for awhile now - and the last decade has been very productive. I think, we have at least one  female who has been in her reproductive prime, the last 5 years.

They don't have the jaw strength, teeth or calorie need for seals and mammals, until they are at least 10' long.

If you read reports of size from helicopters or parking lots, they tend to be exaggerated.

They are normally all 3' to 7' in length. They start getting noticed when they are at least 5'.

Will Rogers needs to be turned into a marine sanctuary.