Recent shark sightings off the Peninsula coast serve as reminders for the public to exercise caution and be aware when in the ocean.
The sightings occurred in Pacifica and Half Moon Bay, where Ian Walters, a sixth-grade teacher in Oakland, remained calm and collected when he had an unexpected visitor while kayaking and fishing with a buddy off Pillar Point.
"Lovely fishing, beautiful water and then I noticed a very large dorsal fin behind my buddy’s kayak and then a very large tail behind the dorsal fin, and then I let him know that there is a shark behind him," Walters recalled. "We talked about it briefly, and the shark followed my buddy for maybe two or three minutes, just very slow, nothing threatening of any kind."
The shark eventually circled around and started following Walters' kayak until they floated off towards some seals, where the shark disappeared underwater.
Walters says he may not be rushing to get back into the ocean any time too soon, but he values learning firsthand about the shark’s natural behavior.
"It was simply curious," he said about the shark. "It was just there because that’s where it lives, and we were in its house, essentially, and it came to check us out."
On Monday night, Pacifica police posted about an unconfirmed shark sighting around noon Saturday at Linda Mar Beach. According to authorities, a surfer reported seeing a shark about 200 yards from shore, west of the main beach parking lot.
Local
The shark was described as six feet in length. No aggressive behavior was reported.
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