Bumping Into the Man in the Grey Suit
Story from Eric Anderson
It was a dark and eerie night aboard the Peace dive boat out of Ventura, California. The wind was blowing, seagulls were squawking and the passengers aboard were sharing tales from the days diving. The boat sat anchored on the backside of Santa Cruz Island, and we planned to vote on whether to move to Talcott Shoals along the Northwest corner of Santa Rosa Island. The captain made the call. “Alright, who wants to dive Talcott?”, and all hands were raised. We all knew about the increasing presence of white sharks there, but the bounty of bugs (lobsters) was waiting for us.
I had recently finished my time in the United States Marine Corps and was hungry for a new quest. When I would see my father in law, Phil, and his buddies, they would often relay stories from their ocean adventures hunting fish, abalone and lobster. My wife Marissa could tell I was completely enamored with their tales of animal encounters, and stricken with the charm of the ocean. So, in January 2013, she surprised me with a class to get scuba certified. Phil and a band of men and women who have been diving together for more than thirty years chartered the Peace boat every November on the weekend before Thanksgiving. It was now my turn for adventure at the Channel Islands, and I could not wait.
Fast forward to 2018. I now have five years of experience freediving for abalone and spearfishing up and down California, from Big Sur to the Lost Coast. I still pull out the tank and scuba gear as November approaches in anticipation of our annual trip to the Channel Islands. By now I am very familiar with Santa Cruz and Santa Rosa Islands, having completed more than 100 scuba dives around them. On the Friday before Thanksgiving we pulled out of Ventura Harbor at 2:00am and steamed our way to Santa Cruz Island. On the first day we made dives around Santa Cruz, and that evening after the night dive made the collective decision to go to Talcott Shoals.
Day two was a success. Everyone was pulling great bags of bugs and enjoying the hot tub in between dives. During one dive my buddy saw a 10-foot great white and snapped a few photos. Everyone wanted to hear the story and what he did (or did not do) when he saw it. Two dives later, another group of divers saw the shark again. We continued to make day dives, but due to the lingering white shark presence we did not make a night dive the second night. That evening we held another vote. The question was whether or not to stick it out at Talcott with the white sharks cruising the area. Or, we could steam back to Santa Cruz Island and maybe pull one extra dive on the final day. I went to sleep wondering if I would see a great white during this trip.
The next morning I woke up early to watch the sunrise over Talcott Shoals. At one time this place was a vast forest of endless kelp. Unfortunately the fields of kelp are now a distant memory. In shallower water there are still kelp beds, but it is nowhere near the same from what I have been told. “Gates open in fifteen minutes!” Our captain made the call to wake up and get ready for the first dive, and divers slowly crawled out of their bunks, filing into the galley for food and beverage.
My brothers in law, Jamin and Kyle, have been my dive buddies for years on these trips. We work well in a team of three, having spent enough time underwater together to communicate efficiently while grabbing bugs and shoving them into bags. We got suited up and made our way to the bow anchor line. Most often the anchor is sitting on the reef making it easy to follow the line to the bottom. We jumped in the water and started our descent with the anchor line in sight. I hit the bottom at roughly fifty-five feet and started to kick. When I looked to my left, I could see a large object coming into view.
The great white looked to be roughly twelve feet in length and as round as a wine barrel. Once the initial shock of seeing the shark wore off I quickly looked to my dive partners, who both had their eyes wide and locked on the big fish. My eyes traced back to the shark in time to watch it slowly fin away, not paying any attention to us. At that moment all I could think was, “Where is my GoPro?” I reached into my BC pocket, grabbed my camera and fumbled to turn it on while kicking as hard as I could after the shark.
I watched as the shark swam over a small ridge and turned right, angling towards a group of divers who were arm deep in the reef and distracted with hunting bugs. They had no idea as it passed right over their heads and then hooked right again, now pointing directly at me. I watched it slowly making its way towards me from thirty yards out. It swam within thirty feet and then turned right in front of me. My camera was out and ready and I could see its eye looking right at me, watching and seemingly curious about what I was doing. Its tail slowly moved back and forth, just enough to propel it forward. It made three more wide, slow circles around the area, checking us out but not showing too much interest.
I watched the shark for nearly twenty five minutes as it cruised right over the heads of several groups of unsuspecting divers. Both my brothers in law were already back at the boat. After another ten minutes of cruising the area it decided to take a left and move off. I followed for about fifty yards and then stopped to watch as it vanished into the haze. I kept my gaze on the empty ocean depths for another minute before turning back toward the boat. Once on board, I could hear other divers talking to each other and asking, “Who’s the crazy guy filming that shark?” I laughed and told everyone the story. A few other divers did see the shark, but I was stoked to get footage of it on my GoPro.
Throughout the entire experience I never felt threatened, and during that moment I believed the risk was low enough to capture the shark on video. Now, some may disagree with my decision and that is okay. I am not a marine biologist or shark expert; I do not understand the ins and outs of their behavior. The only information I had to inform my decision was that it was not behaving aggressively, and I was diving scuba, which is all the motivation I needed to get out my camera and enjoy this experience with an incredible animal.