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Kayaker next to a great white shark
Most people know the odds of being attacked by a shark are fairly low in the grand scheme of things. However, that doesn’t do much to calm you down when you end up at the center of one of those relatively rare attacks, including the scary situation a man recently found himself facing while kayaking off the coast of California.
Sharks don’t appear anywhere close to the top of the list of animals that are responsible for the most human fatalities on an annual basis. There are fewer than 100 unprovoked attacks per year around the globe, and any 365-day stretch that results in more than a dozen people being killed is considered an anomaly.
There have also historically been hotspots when it comes to shark attacks. The United States has been the site of the majority of the recorded incidents stretching all the way back to 1580, and the waters that surround Florida have overwhelmingly been the top place to avoid if you’re worried about falling victim to one.
Hawaii earns the silver in that category, while California takes the final spot in the top three. There are plenty of sharks lurking off the more than 800 miles of coastline the Golden State has to offer, and one was responsible for giving a kayaker the fright of his life earlier this week.
A kayaker who was fishing off the coast of California had to swim to shore after a shark punctured his vessel
All the aforementioned data revolves around shark attacks where a human suffered physical harm as opposed to incidents where one managed to take a chunk out of a surfboard or some other inanimate object.
However, you can still suffer some psychological damage if you attract the attention of a shark while partaking in an activity that designates you as a “surface recreationist,” which is the status an unnamed man in California achieved when he hopped into a kayak to do some fishing off Leffingwell Landing in Cambria on Monday morning.
According to a post that was shared by the Cambria Fire Department, the kayaker was angling around a mile off the shore at approximately 9:30 AM when he was knocked into the water after something bumped into the bottom of the vessel with enough force to upend it.
He was able to climb back onto the kayak and attempted to paddle back to land before discovering that whatever was responsible for the initial assault had managed to puncture the hull, which began to take on water.
He subsequently hopped back into the ocean knowing there was a very good chance there was a shark in his vicinity, but he thankfully managed to get back to dry land without any further incident.
The fire department dispatched a boat that was able to retrieve the kayak before it sank, and a marine biologist who works at the shark lab at California State University Long Beach came to the conclusion that a shark was the culprit after looking at a picture of the damage.
It’s unclear what species was responsible, but a great white seems like one of the most likely culprits given their nature and well-documented presence in the area.