A Patrolling Great White Shark Spoils Marathon Swimmer’s Long Sought After Goal
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Great White Sharks are pelagic, or deep, cold water species. Next to the relatively harmless whale shark, the Great White, made infamous by Peter Benchley’s JAWS and the subsequent 1975 Spielberg movie, is the largest predator in the shark family, but not necessarily the most dangerous primarily because of the fact that it prefers deep water, where there are few swimmers. It goes without saying that if you are in the water, however, and that shark is in the water, you need to get out quickly, especially if you are bleeding as was the case of a Northern California man.
A great white shark on patrol ruined a Northern California man’s quest to become the first person to swim from the Golden Gate Bridge to the Farallon Islands, a well known feeding ground for this voracious predator.
Corte Madera marathon swimmer Simon Dominguez was trying to swim about 28 miles when his teen daughter, in a support boat, spotted the great white as he was about 3 miles from his goal, reports KPIX-TV.
After 18 long hours in the frigid ocean, he reluctantly climbed into his support boat as the 12-to-15-foot shark circled it.
Out of the water, the 49-year-old, blood streaming down his chest from chafed skin around his neck, said he was disappointed that he didn’t finish the swim.
“It was hard, but a shark is a shark,” Dominguez said.
Four swimmers have swum from the Farallon Islands to San Francisco, but Dominguez would have been the first to make the trip in the other direction.
The latest survey showed that Great White shark numbers are increasing off the East coast.
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