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Hawaii diver captures rare great white shark encounter on video

A Hawaii-based photographer was astonished Friday to spot a 15-foot great white shark swimming toward him off Kona on the Big Island.

Deron Verbeck told FTW Outdoors that he was freediving and first spotted the shark about 100 feet below the surface. “But she turned and came up into about 30 feet when I got all the shots and video,” he said.

The accompanying video shows the shark’s close approach as Verbeck captures video footage with a GoPro while also shooting stills. (Video is best viewed with volume.)

Great white shark sightings are rare in Hawaii, but adult white sharks from Mexico and California seasonally visit island waters.

After the encounter, Verbeck joked on Facebook: “Well check this one off the list of things ‘I shouldn’t have been swimming with.’ My first ever GREAT WHITE SHARK! And it happened to be in Kona and a 5-minute drive from my house!”

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The renowned freediver told KHON 2 that he first thought he had spotted a tiger shark but quickly recognized the classic shape of a large female white shark.

“It just kept getting bigger and bigger and I was like, ‘That is for sure, 100% a great white,’ ” Verbeck said. “And I just shot as much as I could as she went by, and she just disappeared back off the drop, then I was just shaking like, ‘Woah! That was insane!’ ”

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Dr. Michael Domeier (@doc_domeier)

The shark, although inquisitive, did not seem to regard Verbeck as prey.

Carl Meyer of the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology told KHON 2 that white sharks might be attracted to island waters by the seasonal abundance of humpback whales. (White sharks are known to feast on whale carcasses.)

Michael Domeier of the Marine Conservation Science Institute stated on Instagram that “after a quick scan” the shark did not match any of the nearly 400 white sharks in the photo-identification catalog from Mexico’s Guadalupe Island.

Deep Blue, said by some to be the largest great white shark ever documented, measuring about 20 feet, is in the Guadalupe Island database and has been spotted in Hawaiian waters.

Domeier said his research team suspects that “this beautiful female is from the Central California Tribe or Pt. Conception Tribe” of white sharks.

Domeier stated that the shark “was spotted literally right in front of my house. This is the stuff that gets me out of bed in the morning with a smile!”

Verbeck is an award-winning photographer who specializes in shooting while freediving, or on a single breath without scuba gear. Many of his photos are shared via Instagram.

Great white shark tracked to ‘infamous’ California surfing beach

A great white shark has been hanging out near shore at a popular California surfing destination known for shark attacks.

Michael Domeier of the Marine Conservation Science Institute stated via Instagram Friday that the female white shark was positioned off “infamous” Surf Beach at Vandenberg Air Force Base near Lompoc.

Fatal shark attacks occurred in that area, north of Santa Barbara, almost exactly two years apart in October 2010 and 2012. A nonfatal attack, also attributed to a great white shark, occurred in 2014. (Surf Beach is open to the public.)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Dr. Michael Domeier (@doc_domeier)

The tagged white shark currently off Surf Beach is named Betty White. She was a sub-adult 12-foot female when she was tagged off Southern California in 2020.

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Dozens of sharks tagged by the MCSI can be tracked via the group’s Expedition White Shark app.

The app on Friday and Saturday showed Betty White on land near Lompoc.

Domeier, MCSI president and executive director, explained that the peculiar positioning “just demonstrates the imprecision of location estimates that are based on the Doppler Effect.”

Still, the sight of a yellow dorsal fin marker well inland inspired attempts at humor beneath Domeier’s post.

“You sure Betty wasn’t hitting up the Starbucks in Albertsons?” one person commented.

To which Domeier replied: “Or maybe looking for a CA dispensary before heading back to [Hawaii].”

–Generic white shark image courtesy of ©Pete Thomas

‘Very chunky’ great white shark leaves researchers in awe

Cape Cod-based researchers were astonished recently, while reviewing footage, to spot a male great white shark with such extraordinarily girth.

Researchers were astonished recently, while reviewing footage, to spot a male great white shark with such extraordinarily girth.

The largest and fattest white sharks are females, especially during pregnancies. (They can measure nearly 20 feet and weigh 5,000-plus pounds.)

The accompanying image was captured by the Cape Cod-based Atlantic White Shark Conservancy, which commented this week on Facebook:

“There are some sharks that make our data team stop and take a double-take. One of our data team members was analyzing GoPro footage, they came across this very chunky, male, white shark.”

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White sharks are ambush feeders that prey largely on seals and other pinnipeds. They’ll also feast on whale carcasses if the opportunity arrises. So it stands to reason that male sharks might exhibit considerably more girth after mealtime.

The Atlantic White Shark Conservancy added: “Our data team can assume that the shark recently ate due to the size of its stomach.”

–White shark image courtesy of Atlantic White Shark Conservancy

Watch: Great white shark devours anglers’ tuna, returns for more

Anglers targeting mako sharks during a tournament Sunday off Maryland were visited instead by a great white shark that attacked a tuna carcass hanging overboard as chum.

Anglers targeting mako sharks during a tournament Sunday off Maryland were visited instead by a great white shark that devoured a tuna carcass hanging overboard as chum.

The accompanying footage shows the 12-foot shark ripping the tuna from its tether and moments later returning for a closer inspection of the boat’s stern.

“Hey, don’t eat my motor, bro!” an angler barks as the shark nearly brushes the vessel’s outboard engine.

The close encounter involved the boat Miller Time and occurred on the third and final day of the Mako Mania Shark Tournament out of Bahia Marina in Ocean City. Capt. Brandon Miller estimated the shark to measure 12 feet.

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Stated Fish In OC: “The shark entered their chum slick and can be seen biting and hanging on to a tuna carcass presented by Ryan Oberholtzer as it swims just inches from the boat. The action took place at the 20 fathom fingers off of Ocean City, Maryland on June 6, 2021. The big shark swam away unharmed.”

Miller Time failed to make the Mako Mania leaderboard, but this spectacle undoubtedly proved to be a nice consolation.

White sharks, a protected species, are spotted sporadically off Ocean City.

–Images courtesy of Fish In OC

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Great white shark encounter literally a touching experience

Fishing took a backseat for some Florida anglers last Thursday when a large great white shark began to circle their 34-foot boat, at times within touching distance.

Erika Almond, owner of the Offshore Therapy vessel, captured the accompanying footage, which also shows the shark biting her outboard motors as the anglers watched in awe.

Capt. Tyler Levesque, who was hired by Almond to take her and a few friends snapper fishing, is the man seen touching the shark in the image atop this post.

https://www.facebook.com/FOX13TampaBay/videos/253536779732490/

“The whole experience was amazing,” he told For The Win Outdoors.

The encounter occurred 65 miles out of Venice in the Gulf of Mexico.

Almond explained that the shark, measuring perhaps 16 feet, appeared in a chum slick as the group was catching yellowtail snapper and mangrove snapper.

In a video recording, Almond stated: “The thing that made this even more interesting was this shark was not going to leave. He was there for about two to three hours, circled our boat continuously, bit the back of the boat several times, bit the motor several times, and even rolled on its back to show us its belly, as if it wanted us to pet it.”

Levesque said that at one point he fed the shark a longfin yellowtail that one of the anglers had caught.

Great white sharks are sometimes attracted to electrical impulses emitted by boat motors, and will bite them as a behavioral response.

Almond said Levesque touched the shark’s snout mainly to shove it from the motors.

The bites were not ferocious. However, Almond said that toward the end of the encounter the shark “came charging underneath the motors to attack them again, and hit them so hard that it caused boat to rock, and that’s when it took off.”

–Images courtesy of Erika Almond

Baby great white shark grabs spotlight on whale-watching trip

Whale watchers out of Newport Beach last week enjoyed a bonus sighting in the form of a newborn great white shark that swam near the boat.

Whale watchers out of Newport Beach last Tuesday enjoyed a bonus sighting in the form of a newborn great white shark that swam alongside the vessel for several minutes.

The accompanying video footage and still images were captured from aboard the Newport Legacy by Delaney Trowbridge for Davey’s Locker Sportfishing and Whale Watching.

Trowbridge told For The Win Outdoors that the encounter with the 3- to 4-foot shark occurred one mile off Crystal Cove State Park in Laguna Beach.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4BOEjlEaK4]

“It was an unbelievably lucky moment,” she said. “We almost never see sharks at the surface, and when we do the conditions are usually not nice enough to get a clear view of the animal. You usually just see a few inches or less of the dorsal fin.”

Also, small white sharks spook easily, but Trowbridge added, “This shark was very relaxed with us.”

Asked to confirm the ID, Chris Lowe, Director of the Shark Lab at California State University – Long Beach, told FTW Outdoors: “Looks like a white shark to me and based on its swimming pattern and body shape, I would say relatively newborn.

Lowe added, “There is a lot of shark activity along the coast right now, all juveniles and a lot of young-of-the-year (born this spring).”

Adult white sharks, which can measure to about 20 feet, typically prey on seals and sea lions near island rookeries. It’s not known precisely where they give birth.

Juvenile white sharks, which are on their own since birth, spend a lot of time in shallow coastal waters, where they feed on rays and other bottom fishes.

These are the sharks most commonly featured in video footage captured by drone operators.

However, sightings of newborn white sharks are rare, especially from aboard whale-watching boats, which typically operate well beyond the surf zone.

Said Trowbridge: “This one just calmly cruised beside us and everyone on board was completely amazed by just how well you could see this animal.

“Eventually we had to keep moving, though, and left it behind us. But within a half-hour we had come across over 1,000 common dolphins, two humpback whales, and thousands of birds.”