Greg Long Nearly Bit By Tiger Shark At Rocky Point

Greg Long Nearly Bit By Tiger Shark At Rocky Point
February 4, 2007 Kaja Cencelj



Greg Long vows to be back in the water, minus the board he was riding that day.

 

NEWS
Greg Long Nearly Bit By Tiger Shark At Rocky Point

Posted 02.17.2005

On Wednesday afternoon, Greg Long of
San Clemente, CA. was nearly the victim of a tiger shark attack. Long's
surfboard wasn't so lucky and had a chunk ripped out of it. Beaches
along the North Shore were closed while officials assessed the
situation.

“Bit of a scare to say to the least,” says Long, calling
from the Johnson’s North Shore home to recall the incident.

“I went over to Rocky Lefts to try out my 6’6”. The surf was bit
big and washy, but a couple fun corners and I wanted to check out the
board. I’d been out there for about 30 minutes and there was a nice
little lull. I’d moved inside a little bit, pretty much onto the
rights, and — I don’t actually remember if I was sitting or laying,
but I must have been laying otherwise I wouldn’t have a leg right now
— just out of nowhere, it came from straight underneath me and just
blasted my board, launched me a foot or two into the air and I landed
in the water; my ribs are still hurting from the blow of it. Right when
it happened so many things ran through my head, like, giant turtle,
seal (even though I know there’s none of those over here), a breaching
whale and then the last thing I thought of was a shark. This is all
within a split second of being hit. And then I kind of regrouped my
thoughts and composure and saw the whole outline, the grayish brown
outline, never got a really good luck but I’m pretty certain it was a
tiger. My first initial thought, based on what I’ve heard about sharks,
was that I should defend myself. But it was actually out of my range a
little bit, because at the same time I did a little frog kick to get
away from it, sort of punching at it a little bit with my hand. But
when I was kicking I grazed it with my foot. Then I pulled on my leash,
got my board and just bee-lined straight for shore. At first I was
scrambling like a madman, never paddled so hard in my life, but then I
kinda mellowed out to look over my shoulder and try not to attract too
much attention.

Unfortunately, it was during a lull, but finally a big double up
landed on my head, I ditched my board, got dragged across the reef,
took another one on the head and did it all over again. [Photographer]
Scotty Bauer saw the commotion from the beach, looked through his lens
and saw the fin right next to me right after it happened. He saw the
shark turn and head toward Sunset. He came running down thinking I was
missing a leg or something. There was also another guy who reached the
beach a few strokes before me and I was, like, “Wow, you saw that
right?” And he said, yeah, and so I was like, okay, at least someone’s
going to believe me. I looked at my board in disbelief and did a pat
down to check for all my limbs. I was fine, and with all the adrenaline
and shock I was actually just kind of laughing. Like, did that really
happen? I just got attacked by a shark. And then I went up to the house
and showered off and calmed my nerves and thinking about what really
happened. I almost had a full emotional breakdown at that point,
absolutely taken aback by the whole thing. It still doesn’t seem real.
Like, as of yesterday, I was attacked by a shark. I’m pretty amazed,
and I’m the luckiest man alive right now I’d say.

Comment (1)

  1. primož 2026 years ago

    uff. one lucky bastard…hvalabogu. si sploh nočem predstavljat dogodka v prvi osebi :- . šit pa še ti morski psi.

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