Great White Chomps On Kayak Off Catalina Island

LOS ANGELES, CA — A Great White shark chomped down on a kayak off Catalina Island Saturday, but it was the kayaker who came away with a piece of the shark in the end.

San Diego resident Danny McDaniel was kayaking with his diving buddy near Ship Rock, a few miles from the bay when he felt his kayak jolt suddenly and turning against his will. He thought it was his friend trying to get his attention, but when he looked down he realized a 14 to 17-foot shark had a hold of his kayak.

The shark was twice as big as his kayak, and McDaniel could have been in serious trouble had the shark been looking for a meal. But it’s more likely the shark just took a nibble out of curiosity, leaving two large teeth embedded in the kayak before swimming away.
McDaniel did his best to remain calm.

“The primary thought on top of everything else was don’t fall into the water,” he told KCAL9. “I’m grateful that I didn’t get injured. It wasn’t my time, I suppose.”

“This guy just hit me out of the blue and pushed me around for three, four, five seconds — something like that and let go, and he went on his way,” McDaniel said in a video posted to social media. “Then we turned around immediately and came home.”

“I was just kind of frozen letting him do his thing and I guess I didn’t do anything. I Just let him finish….he left us two souvenirs,” McDaniel added, displaying two big shark teeth.
John Chambers was about 30 yards behind his friend when he saw the shark close in.

“It pushed him about 60 degrees and let him go,” said Chambers. “The whole thing was out of the water for about a second and a half.”

Shark expert Ralph S. Collier told ABC10, the shark’s nibble likely wasn’t predatory.

“He’s going to investigate everything in his environment especially those items that might not be familiar to him,” Collier said.

Seemingly undaunted by the encounter McDaniel and Chambers were back in the water a few hours later for some scuba diving.

“He literally encountered the largest fish I’ve ever seen in 20 years of scuba diving, and he came away from it unscathed," Chambers told KCAL9. “That’s one for the books."