John Vasbinder of Cocoa Beach, Florida has been surfing for 40 years and never thought about sharks until one nearly bit his hand off.
Vasbinder, district vice president of the Central Florida YMCA, was lying on his surfboard June 7, paddling out to catch another wave, when his hand hit something. . . Turns out, something bit his hand. . . “I thought I hit a dolphin or a turtle or something until I looked at my hand,” Vasbinder said. “The skin on my palm was peeled back in three places and a couple of my finger tips were bleeding.”
After 45 stitches he was all better. But the bull shark got away unharmed.
According to the Orlando Sentinel, A 14-year-old girl was bitten on the foot by a shark while surfing Volusia County Beach.
The teen was surfing near Minorca condominiums between 8 and 9a.m. when she stepped off her board in knee-deep water and was bitten on her right foot. She was taken to Bert Fish Memorial Hospital and treated for puncture wounds and lacerations.
We’re glad she’s okay. Apparently that section of the beach is pretty sharky.
Joe Giangrasso, 18, is at home recuperating from a shark bite to the ankle that he got while surfing at Florida’s Ponce Inlet.
“I thought he was going to hit me and hold on for a second. When I went to pull out, he clamped on harder and shook his head. I tried to reach, grab, and push, do whatever I could do. Finally he let go,” said Joe Giangrasso, the shark bite victim.
We haven’t really been on the shark attack beat so rigorously lately, because really, how many stories does anyone want to read about New Smyrna Beach, Florida. But Sunday, September 18, 2016 will go down as one of the sharkiests of days in shark bite city, according to the International Business Times (yeah, they’re chumming for link bait, too).
In the space of five hours sharks attacked three surfers at a single Florida beach, while a teenage boy was bitten on a second beach.
If you want the chomp-by-chomp coverage click the link. The good news is no one is dead. The bad news, is that Volusia County’s attacks this year are tracking up from last year. If you can believe it.
We’ve been posting stories of sharks nipping surfers at Florida’s New Smyrna Beach for years and here’s an up-close example of just why it happens and how much the local surfers don’t care. . .
Michael Adler, a 15-year-old surfer from Fort Lauderdale, Florida is kind of glad he was bitten by a shark while surfing in Melbourne on Saturday, May 4, 2013, according to Fox News. There were 20 holes in the top of his foot, but that’s not the important part.
Adler says he is eager to surf again, despite the attack. . . “Now I know I’m not gonna get bit again so I’m not scared,” he told WSVN. “I mean, how many people get bitten by a shark, twice?”
You mean aside from Florida surfers who say they’re never going to get bit again, Michael?
A 21-year-old surfer from DeBary, Florida wins the honor of New Smyrna’s first shark bite of the season, according to a story in the Daytona Beach News-Journal.
The surfer, whose name was not available, was bitten about 1:30 p.m. Saturday as he caught waves off New Smyrna Beach near the south jetty, Marris said.
According to the International Shark Attach File Florida’s Volusia and Brevard counties share the 2012 record for shark bites with eight each in 2012. Yay, Florida.
Thanks to a little technological wizardry from Ocearch (and some tagged sharks) surfers can now track sharks around the world using the non-profit’s Global Shark Tracker. Want to track “Mary Lee” the 16 foot great white and she tools around Jacksonville, Florida beaches? It’s all there for you. Now, if they could just tag all the sharks.
Surfer Valeh Levy and her daughter Sydney, 15, were out longboarding south of the jetty in Florida’s shark bite capital of the world New Smyrna Beach when Levy saw her daughter get pulled under, according to a story on ClickOrlando.com.
“To me is was like a scene out of ‘Jaws,’ where the girl is getting sucked under. I said, ‘There is no way this thing is going to kill my daughter.’ I grabbed her shoulders and I pulled her up and threw her on the nose of my board,” Levy said. . . She said the shark continued swimming around them as they called out for help to two nearby surfers who assisted them to shore.
When they got to shore an ambulance was already there assisting 17-year-old surfer Nick Romano with his shark bite. “Every surfer thinks one day they will get bit by a shark,” Romano said. “Well, today was my day.”
Northern California and Florida surfing is quite different.. Florida is warm and flat waves. NorCal has freezing ass water and huge unruly waves most of the time. One thing they have in common, oddly, is sharks. NorCal’s great whites are a little gnarlier than the sharks found in Florida. Just ask Benjie Rose.
Benjie Rose was sitting on his board 40 yards off of Samoa Beach at a spot called Power Poles on Sunday when a white shark came up under him, hitting his board and knocking him into the air. . . His board badly damaged and with a bloody nose, Rose managed to paddle into a wave and rode it onto the shore, where it broke in half and he discovered teeth marks.
Rose was very lucky to have gotten away with a broken board. This reminds us that it’s quite nice of Rip Curl to hold their Pro Search San Francisco event right in the middle of the Red Triangle, isn’t it?
