According to Windansea surfer Scot Cherry, “I was trolling off my [13-foot] board with my friend, Danny Thomas (Tiny Brain Thomas’s son). I like using a surfboard rather than a kayak because it keeps me in shape for catching waves.
“Danny was in his kayak when I hooked up (with a shark) and started getting towed north. He tried to keep up with me, but I was moving too fast. I looked over my shoulder and said, ‘I’m headed to Del Mar.’ I wouldn’t see him again for another three and a half hours. I was joking at the time, but when I got just north of the Del Mar trestle, I thought, ‘Okay, that’s far enough’ (Scripps Pier to Del Mar trestle is about five miles). By then, the shark had already peeled off three-quarters of my line, and I put my legs in the water to slow it down and turn him around.
“Once I turned him, he towed me back to the northwest kelp off Boomers. (Boomer Beach in La Jolla is about a mile south of Scripps Pier.) I’m unsure if it’s there anymore, but Scripps used to have a research buoy about five miles off the coast. We were near the buoy, and I thought the shark would wrap the line around it, so I turned him around again. It wasn’t until I got within about two miles off the coast at Horseshoe (Horseshoe is a reef about a mile north of Windansea) that he was dead.
“I thought that, but when I gaffed him, he came back alive. As I gaffed him with my left hand, it kicked its tail and launched across my board. Then, I grabbed a knife and severed his spine so his brain couldn’t send any more signals to the rest of his body.
“I didn’t have any rope, so I called a boat over. They gave me some rope, and I tied the shark to my board before they asked if I wanted a ride to the beach. I arrogantly declined. I was making my way to shore with my legs hanging over my board when, after paddling about a mile, I felt my left leg getting hit hard. Some sharks will hit something to test it and see if it will fight. If it had been a mako, as I thought at first, it probably would have grabbed my leg.
“There was a boat going by, and I called them over. I climbed aboard the boat and landed the second shark, which turned out to be a blue. They’re lousy eating, so I let it go. The guys on the boat offered to take me the rest of the way in, and this time, I gratefully accepted. Once near the beach, some people helped me get the shark to shore.
“After landing the nine-footer, I photographed it tied to the shack. With the 11-footer, I had nothing left in me; all I wanted was to go home and sleep. Since no coolers were big enough to hold it, I cut off the head and tail and put everything into our bathtub. My daughter was happy she couldn’t bathe because a shark was in the tub.”
The Young Man & the Sea is an excerpt from Chris Ahrens’ upcoming book, “Windansea: Life. Death. Resurrection.” Anyone interested in helping fund this project is encouraged to visit www.givesendgo.com/GB6US.
Scot Cherry is retired and living in Baja, where he continues surfing and fishing as often as possible.
