Forget the giant surf and flock of ratings-chasing rippers who've been shredding our beloved breaks this past week. This year, instead of the heartwarming tale of a local freckle-faced prodigy's career-jump-starting win, the real story of the O'Neill Cold Water Classic has nothing to do with competition at all.
What's got everyone talking involves a young professional surfer and his first encounter with the baddest local around, the great white shark.
On Thursday, 21-year-old Eric Geiselman of New Smyrna Beach, Fla., went out free surfing up the coast at Laguna's. It's a popular wedge beach break that offers up some fun surf when the waves are small in town. The contest was on hold and Gieselman, who had a heat the next day, was trying to get a bit of last minute practice in.
He was floating on his board when he felt a powerful force smash his board from underneath.
"I knew it was a shark right away," Gieselman said of his first reaction to the attack. "The water was swirling and my leg connected with the thing. It was solid."
The great white shark, a.k.a. "whitey" or "the man in the gray suit," is perhaps a surfer's greatest nightmare. Here in the chilly waters of Central California, great white's live, reproduce, and eat -- a lot. What's on this hungry hunter's menu? The staple is elephant seals, whose thick blubber and hefty size prove a tasty, filling meal for ol' whitey.
