After hearing that two Great White sharks had been sighted of California’s coast, Manhattan Beach’s Mike Durrant decided to have a look for himself.
Paddling out on his stand up paddle board at El Porto, Durrant found what he was looking for when a juvenile Great White swam directly underneath him. “I like to live on the edge,” he said in an interview with ABC. “I like to surf good sized waves and do things that scare me a little bit. It makes me feel alive.”
According to ABC News, juvenile sharks are not uncommon in Southern California, because females give birth here. Sharks are now protected under California’s Endangered Species Act.
“It probably wouldn’t have hurt me,” Durrant continued in the interview. “But I’ve heard of the juveniles taking bites out of people, so I was a little bit rattled.”
There are no plans in place for a ban on ocean-going, however, because bans are usually reserved for actual attacks, and not encounters.
There have been multiple sightings in the area in the last few weeks, including this one that was also caught on tape.
