Jim Rawlinson was surfing Hanalei Bay when the shark attack took place. “All of a sudden I felt this strike on the back of my board and it lifted me kind of up in the air,” Jim said. The “strike” was a tiger shark biting into his surfboard. In the air and sliding backward, Jim actually ended up on top of the shark’s back.
“I was on the shark’s back anywhere from 5-10 seconds,” he said. “It was so strange that everything was so slow and yet again so fast.” While riding the shark’s back, Jim took hold of the shark’s fins and rode it, unsure of what to do.
“About that time my board was free floating around so I swam over and got it and surfed for another 45 minutes or so.”
I don’t know about you, but after riding a shark that wanted to eat me, the last thing I’d be doing is surfing, unless it was the fastest way to get to shore, and it wouldn’t be a 45 minute session.
The tiger shark was no baby, either. Terry Lilley, a marine biologist, measured the bite mark on Jim’s surfboard and said that the shark had to be 14 feet long. This guy road a killer shark the size of a mid-sized sedan!
Ironically, Jim’s attack occurred just 5 miles from where Bethany Hamilton’s arm was bitten off by another shark attack in 2003.
Even after his encounter, Jim says of sharks, “They’re very gentle; they’ve very warm.” He said his experience was almost spiritual, and that he now feels a very strange connection to the animal.
