Saw my first Great White

[textilet]

I posted the video in the videography thread but This is probably the right place for it. I was volunteering with Ocean Defenders Alliance on Sunday cleaning up ghost fishing gear in the Channel Islands in California. We had great diving and brought up some rusty old lobster traps from the bottom near Santa Cruz Island, then headed back to port in Ventura. On the way in I spotted a large white object in the water, which turned out to be a whale carcass. As we moved in closer, we could see huge bite marks on the side of the whale and noticed even from a distance that the carcass was being... Shaken. Here is the video of what happened next: Great White Shark, Ventura California on Vimeo

 

[tajkd]

Cool!

I can't wait for my first!

 

[MaxBottomtime]

Kurt told me that everyone wanted to get in the water until all the blue sharks showed up.

 

[textilet]

We were totally willing to get in with blues. But Chris spotted the GWS first and just quietly said "There's a massive great white out there." I rolled the dry suit right back up.

 

[Joaz Banbeck]

I was there too, on a dive boat coming back from a fruitless attempt at bug hunting at Anacapa. The GW would tear off a chunk of whale, and then explore the local boats for a minute or two then go back for another bite. So we got to see him up close.

There were at least two blue sharks circling. They would rush in and grab a quick bite when he was not there. The blues looked to be about 7 or 8 feet long.

When the GW circled our boat he would be just a few feet down, sometimes breaking the surface. I got a really good look at him one time. He was gliding perpendicularly across the stern, maybe 5 feet away, fins just making eddies on the surface. He was almost as long as the stern was wide. I measured the stern later: paced it off as best I could, and estimated the rest without falling off. It was about 14 feet. So my estimate is that he was 12 feet long.

My dive buddy had a camera, and got some video footage. I may post it here if he got some good shots.