8/17 Wellfleet MA

[Ralph Morrison]

Our week on beautiful Cape Cod is over. We had three days of kiting, some swell, some flat water. Surfed every day. At the end of a day that I did a double session I was exhausted. The last day we surfed was very interesting. Right when we were about to go out the lifeguards were running up and down the beach, blowing their whistles, telling everybody to get out of the water. A 16 foot Great White was sighted by a ship that was anchored over an old shipwreck, three miles down the beach. We decided to walk down the beach, outside the lifeguard area an surf some waves closer in. We figured that the shark might be going in the other direction and we'ed just be cautious.
We kept an eye on the seals that are spread out off shore. They were acting normally so we were going out to about waist deep and riding waves in. It was a little spooky but felt alright. After about twenty minutes of that we noticed more seals moving into the area and about that time the lifeguards came down and blew their whistles at us, so we got out. I asked the lifeguard about the seals and he said, if the shark was right there, they would come right up on the beach.
They told us to stay out of the water for a half hour and then it would be "safe" to go back in. More and more seals were coming up to the group that was just off shore from us. At first there were panicked and moving around anxiously. It really seemed that the shark was moving our way. When the half hour was up we went back out with the group of seals about a hundred feet from us. We kept our eyes on their reactions and caught a bunch more waves. It was a really cool experience.