Except for the seals bobbing their black heads in and out of the green Pacific waters, brothers Eric and Nick Larsen seemed to have the ocean to themselves.
Dressed in wet-suits and gloves, they straddled their surf-boards under a brilliant blue sky. There was a southerly flow to the ocean this cool Monday morning, July 1,1991. Metre-high waves were sweeping into a narrow, deserted beach,one of the many coves on the coastline north of California’s Monterey Bay.
Some time after 8 a. m. , 50-year-old Nick pointed his board towards the beach about 150 metres away. "I’m going to the truck to warm up," he said,"I’ll stay a little longer," Eric called after him.
Until ten weeks earlier,Eric had been a software engineer writing programs for a fibre-optic data network^ for the pro¬posed NASA space station. But he found the pace too slow and wanted to be outdoors.
So when the company began laying off employees,the 32-year-old told management he’d take a leave of absence. "That will mean one less person you have to let go. " Life had been an athletic carnival since.
At six feet one , 175 pounds, Eric had always been in shape. Now he brought himself to peak fitness , running, swimming, bicycling, surf ing, board sailing and canoeing.
Awaiting the break of a good wave,Eric noticed a swirling turbulence in the water close by. There’s something really big down there,he thought.
In that instant he felt a powerful clamp on his left leg. Staring in horror, he saw two wide rows of white, triangular teeth, bared to the gums, biting through flesh and muscle. Thigh to shin, his leg was caught in the jaws of a great white shark at least five metres long.
Pry them loose! In lightening-fast reflex, Eric shot his gloved left hand to the top of the monster’s snout, his right to the bottom. He pushed mightily against the jaws while the shark tugged. At that moment the jaws opened and Eric jerked his leg free. He kicked away from the clumsy attacker,arms still outstretched. Too late,he tried to pull them in.