Posted by tommy7 on November 29, 2001 at 10:12:42:
It was a nice warm afternoon about 10 weeks ago when my older son Josiah(24) and my younger son Christopher (11) and I entered the water at Point Dume. Josiah and I were hunting and Christopher was along for the ride. The visibility was very good about 20 feet when we entered and was getting better. Wow what a day! I swam about 40 yards and saw a halibut sitting on top of the sand. He wasn't real bid but deffinately legal, so i shot. It only took a couple of seconds to get him onto the stringer. I let Christopher run him back to shore and put him in the ice-chest. By the time he got back Josiah was long gone. Chris and I swam around hunting and exploring for about an hour when he decided to go in. I then turned my attention to finding Josiah. I saw him heading down to the point and started down to find him. There was a boat anchored about 3/4 mile off shore in the big kelp with divers holding big guns getting on and off periodically. I snorkeled out in their direction. As I moved through the kelp in deeper water the vis really cleared up. I could see all the way to the bottom. A few large (maybe 5 pound) Garibaldis and several very big batrays kept my attention. The bottom was rocky w/ lots of urchins and star fish. I was really being drawn in by the beauty and finally realized that I hadn't looked up for awhile. When I did lift my head out of the water I saw that the boat was gone and that there was no sign of my son. I turned to shore and saw that I had swam about 1/2 mile out. Wow how time flies when your having fun!! It dawned on me that it was probably a good time to head back. No sooner had I turned toward shore the I saw a large blue shark coming straight at me. I think that he was about my size "6.2 220 lbs.". It is not uncommon to see 50 sharks a day when diving there but they are almost all under 3 feet. This guy was huge. He was 15 yards away and coming straigh to me. I was looking into his eyes and he seemed to be looking into mine. I made a few sudden movements thinking that that wood spook him (not). Now i'm thinking, should i release my spear into the water in an effort to startle him off? On second thought I wanted it loaded in the event I needed it. Now I wasn't panicking I was just thinking what the best course of action would be if... I had always heard that blue sharks were rarely a threat to divers and that they can also be quite currious animals. He was now about 5 feet away. I was on the surface and he was down about 3 feet under and directly in front of me. I decided to poke him in the nose w/ my spear tip if he raised up to lick me. He never veared off his original course and passed directly under me and kept going. Now that he was gone I was trying to slow my heart rate and resist the desire to swim faster. It bothered me that he was so brave. I stopped several times to look around but he never came back. Back on shore I was rethinking my first close encounter with a realativily large shark and decided that he may have been looking for a free meal. The guys on the boat with their big 60 inch spear guns had probably shot a bunch of white sea bass or calico and the sent was in the water........ Any way it was a great experiance and filled my head w/ thoghts and dreams for a week. I can still see him clearly in my memory. It is even more fun to think about him when we are out there at night looking for bugs ;))....... Good Diving, Tommy7