NEED TO KNOW

  • David Slavich was fishing in Half Moon Bay from his kayak when a great white shark swam up beside him

  • The shark was reportedly longer than Slavich’s 12.5-foot vessel, he said

  • Before going out fishing again, Slavich said his wife wants him to get a bigger, sturdier boat

A California fisherman is hunting for a sturdier boat after a great white shark swam up beside his kayak.

On Sunday, Oct. 25, fisherman David Slavich was enjoying a leisurely paddle off the coast of Half Moon Bay. Earlier that day, a paddleboarder in the same area warned Slavich that he had spotted a great white shark, but Slavich didn’t think much of it.

“What are the odds that I’m going to run into the shark that he ran into?” Slavich recalled thinking, per KRON 4. Then Slavich recalled hearing a “whoosh” in the water, only to be shocked by what caused it.

“I look over my shoulder, and I see this massive, massive silhouette and the distinctive fin. This is not a killer whale, this is not a dolphin — this is a great white,” Slavich recalled thinking. “Oh my god, oh my god, there’s a great white shark, oh my god.”

“There is this giant eyeball locking with my eyeballs, and it was one of the most surreal moments I’ve ever had in my life,” he added.

Slavich told NBC Bay Area that most people in the water off California consider the great white shark the “boogeyman” that’s “sort of in the back of your mind all the time.”

“Every splash or seagull or anything while I’m out there, I’m hyperaware,” Slavich told the station.

Huddled in his 12.5-foot kayak — which was smaller than the shark itself, per NBC — the fisherman lapsed into “fight-or-flight mode,” he told KRON 4. Frantically pulling up his rig so that the shark couldn’t latch on, Slavich then did the only thing he could do and “brace[d] for impact.”

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Thankfully, the shark ambled by without interfering, and Slavich was in the clear, per KRON 4. After the close call, Slavich told his wife, Andrea,who forbade him from going fishing again until he procures a boat.

“I think my encounter really just proves that they are not interested in eating people,” Slavich told the outlet. “They are pretty curious … [that] didn’t mean my heart wasn’t beating through my chest, because they can explore my leg a bit and I won’t necessarily survive that exploration.”

Read the original article on People