Video Captures Shark Chasing Foil Surfers Off Santa Barbara Coast
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (KEYT) – Local foil surfers had a close encounter with a shark on Saturday about a mile off the coast near Leadbetter Beach in Santa Barbara over the weekend.
Tavis Boise and Ron Takeda started at Campus Point and about half way into a 20 minute "foil run" to Carpinteria they saw a fin and splashing.
Tavis Boise had a camera attached to his paddle and managed that captured him alerting his friend Ron Takeda.
They both managed to keep their cool enough to stay on their rather narrow foil surfboards.
"The first thirty seconds was definitely alarming when someone says 'is that a dolphin?' It is never a dolphin it has got to be something else so I knew as soon has he said 'is that a dolphin?' it was go time and the tail started splashing the shark started chasing Ron," said Boise, "and it was really hard to kind of focus because I was trying to stay on foil you have to balance on these things keep your speed up.
He joked that he was trying to "film the shark trying to eat my friend while trying to survive."
"I'm really bad at multitasking."
Ron Takeda is the more serious of the two.
"I knew I couldn't think so much, I knew I couldn't even look back at it, I knew it was happening I was totally aware it was happening, but I knew from experience I needed to focus on staying on foil, I knew that was my best bet to get out of the situation the way I wanted to stay on foil," said Takeda. "And so I just blocked everything out I knew Tavis had a better look at it than I did so when I did yell at him I wanted it to be a dolphin I knew it wasn't."
Boise posted on social media that after a three-year media hiatus he had an exciting moment to share.
His video that was also shared by Kai Lenny is going viral.
They have had media requests to tell their story from as far away as Australia where surfing is popular.
While some people though the video was AI, shark experts they know think it may have been a mako or great white.
After several minutes the shark seemed to follow.
Once they felt safe hey kept going all the way to Carpinteria where they had a car waiting.
People hearing about what happened might wonder if when or whether they are going back in the water, well they already did.
They went another another long foil fun on Sunday and Monday after the incident and they will go again when the conditions are good.
Sometimes a downwind foil run last for hours.
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