Vacationers wary of California beach after shark attack

A few paddleboarders ignored posted signs warning that a great white shark still could be lurking below the surface, just a day after a swimmer was killed in a rare attack near San Diego.

“It’s like going to see Jaws — getting in the water the next day, all you could think about was the music,” said Bob Rief, 63, who was teaching a friend how to stand up on a paddleboard on Saturday. “But if you’re afraid of the ocean, you shouldn’t be in it.”

The San Diego-area native was worried that the attack would scare away vacationers or weekend beachgoers and hurt businesses. Solana Beach is 23km northwest of San Diego.

Despite summer-like temperatures and cloudless skies that normally lure large crowds, beaches were mostly empty near where triathlete David Martin was killed on Friday.

A shark, believed to be a great white, lifted Martin, 66, out of the water with his legs in its jaws, leaving deep lacerations and shredding the retired veterinarian’s black wetsuit.

An on Saturday confirmed that Martin bled to death, as authorities had believed, the San Diego County medical examiner’s office said.

About of shoreline from San Diego north to Carlsbad remained under advisory closure on Saturday as sheriff’s helicopters scanned the shore for signs of the shark — and for unwitting swimmers.

The beaches in San Diego will be patrolled throughout the weekend, city and county officials said. A weekend surfing competition in Encinitas, a seaside town north of the attack, was canceled because of safety concerns.

Few dotted the normally crowded breaks off Tide Beach Park or Cardiff State Beach — perhaps as much because of shark fears as weak swells.

“I thought twice only because the waves are so small,” said Lynn Richardson, 63, a retiree who nosed his orange kayak straight out toward Tabletop Reef, where the shark struck.

A lifeguard with a megaphone called Richardson in for a stern talking-to but shrugged after Richardson said he was willing to play the odds.

Shark Richard Rosenblatt said on Friday that, judging by Martin’s wounds and the nature of the attack, the shark probably was a great white between 3.7m and 5m long.

Experts the likelihood of finding the shark that attacked Martin was slim.

Great sharks are rare in Southern California, though female great whites sometimes come south from their usual territory in the cooler waters of the central and northern coast to pup. Few attack humans instead of seals or sea lions, their usual prey.

Shark are extremely rare. There were 71 reported worldwide last year, up from 63 in 2006. Only one attack, in the South Pacific, was fatal.