"Enter at your own risk" is the current state of affairs at Pleasure Point Saturday afternoon after a 52-year-old Fremont man was thrown from his kayak by a shark.
He was about 100 yards out mid-morning when he felt something nudge his kayak, Capitola Police Chief Rudy Escalante said. The shark then bit the 13.5-foot kayak, sending the man into the water, where he was picked up by another boat that was floating close by.
The boat brought the man to shore, where he and other witnesses alerted authorities.
Escalante said that the Coast Guard has been notified, and that beachgoers should use caution in and around Pleasure Point for the time being.
Capitola Police Officer Chad Keane said the shark left bite marks 18 inches across the bottom of the kayak. Keane is confident that it was a great white shark. Officers pulled a fragment of a tooth out of the kayak back at the Capitola Village station. See photos of the kayak and the tooth above, and .
Shark sightings are not unheard-of in the Monterey Bay, but according to Keane, an encounter so close to the shore is highly rare if not unprecedented. The water is only 40-feet deep where the incident occurred. Sightings usually occur at least a mile from the beach, Keane said.
