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A hydrofoiling trip off the Santa Barbara coast took a terrifying turn when two friends were stalked by a large shark.
The friends, Ron Takeda and Tavis Boise, shared footage of the scary encounter, which lasted around five minutes as they were hydrofoiling - riding surfboards equipped with underwater wings that lift them above the surface.
“I wanted it to be a dolphin,” Takeda told KTLA. “I honestly didn’t think it was a dolphin, but I wanted it to be one. I yelled, ‘Tavis, is this a dolphin?’”
Takeda told the outlet that, in the moment, there was no time to feel fear, even as the shark appeared to take an unusual interest in him.
“Lots of people see the shark, but that’s it and then it’s over,” Takeda said. “This one was relentlessly chasing, and that’s really what’s so unique about this encounter.”
The video shows Boise doing a double-take when he notices a shark fin suddenly breaking the surface just feet behind Takeda. Almost simultaneously, Takeda spots the predator and yells out, “Is that a shark?”
“Yeah,” Boise shouts back. “Don’t fall!”
“Oh my God, it’s coming for you,” Boise calls while glancing back at his friend and maneuvering through the choppy water. “What the f***. Ron! Ron! Go! Go!” he continues.
Takeda zigzags across the waves in an attempt to evade the shark. The animal eventually lost interest in the pursuit, the men later said, allowing them both to safely make it back to shore.
“I had a little bit more of an emotional reaction watching it (the footage) because it’s definitely not a dolphin and you’re watching it chase your friend, and it’s very clearly interested in him,” Boise said.
The heart-racing moment comes amid a string of recent shark sightings along the California coast. In Huntington Beach, lifeguards spotted an estimated 10-foot great white shark feeding on a sea lion carcass near Sunset Beach, prompting officials to shut down the area for at least 48 hours as a precaution.
That same weekend, another great white sighting near the Huntington Beach Pier forced organizers to suspend a major professional surfing competition.
Even with the recent increase in sightings, experts say shark bites in Southern California remain rare, with only a few dozen confirmed cases recorded over the past several decades, according to data from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.
“We can encounter them all we want, but really it’s their ocean and we’re just small primates,” Boise told KTLA.
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