Ron Takeda was gliding across the Pacific near Santa Barbara on a foil board, a hydrofoil-enhanced craft that lifts above the water, when he spotted what he thought might be a dolphin trailing behind him. His instinct told him otherwise.
"Tavis, is it a dolphin?" he asked his friend Tavis Boise, who was filming the run. Boise knew that question meant trouble. Two experienced water sports enthusiasts should recognize a dolphin instantly. This was something else.
The creature pursuing Takeda was a large shark, likely a great white, estimated at around 13 feet long. For the next five minutes, it followed Takeda across the water, its fin visible above the surface as he maintained a speed of roughly 10 miles per hour.
Boise's footage captured the encounter on video, with his voice growing increasingly frantic. "Don't fall!" he shouted as his path diverged from Takeda's. Moments later: "Oh my God, it's coming for you!"
The chase unfolded during what had started as a promising Saturday morning. Takeda, Boise, and a friend had been waiting for favorable wind conditions before launching on a 20-mile run from the water near the University of California, Santa Barbara. Takeda heard the animal behind him and glanced back to see the massive shape. Rather than panic, he focused on staying upright and keeping the board stable above the surface.
Boise remained at a distance during the pursuit, deciding that Takeda's lighter weight and stability would help him stay afloat more easily. He caught up with his friend several miles downstream, where Takeda's first comment betrayed his nerves: he praised the exceptional conditions on the water.
The two men shared their video with experts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, who confirmed the animal was indeed a shark, likely a great white. When Boise posted the footage online through a friend, it went viral almost immediately, racking up more than a million views and sparking debates about whether the video was artificially generated.
Neither man was convinced the shark was aggressive. Takeda theorized that the foil board itself might have triggered the chase. The foil's shape and movement underwater resembles that of a stingray, a natural prey item for large sharks. "Put yourself in the mind of the shark," Boise explained. "Your prey just tapped you on the shoulder and ran past you."
The pair never felt threatened, and Takeda emphasized that the shark never made physical contact. He titled his video "Friendly Shark Chase," hoping to counter the typical narrative of sharks as menacing. "I'm really certain it was just out of curiosity," he said.
Both men plan to return to the water soon. Boise summed up their newfound confidence: "We feel pretty confident that even if this happens again, we know what to do next time, which is don't fall."
Author James Rodriguez: "A 13-foot shark tailing you for five minutes isn't a casual encounter, but these guys nailed the perspective: they treated it as a wildlife moment, not a near-death experience."
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