Shark Attacks Surfer at Gleneden Beach
Andrew Gardiner (left) and Nolan Collins recall the moment a shark grabbed Gardiner's surfboard north of Depoe Bay Friday morning. (Photo by Larry Coonrod)
By Larry Coonrod-The Lincoln County Dispatch
DEPOE BAY—In a split second 25-year-old Andrew Gardiner went from having the ride of his life to swimming for his life Friday morning when a shark grabbed his surfboard and pitched him into the water.
“As soon as I was in the water I thought I was done,” Gardiner said.
Gardiner and his friend, Nolan Collins, 26, both from York, Maine had been surfing at Gleneden Beach for 90 minutes when the shark attacked. They were sitting on their boards 30 yards offshore waiting for the next break when Gardiner felt the shark strike the back of his board mere inches from his butt.
“We were just talking about how we were going to stay all day,” Gardiner said. “I turned around and saw the whole front of the shark and its black beady eye. If I had been laying down and paddling he would have had my whole leg.”
The shark shook the board from side to side, flipping Gardiner into the water. Collins and Gardiner watched as the shark’s dorsal fin cut the water between them and then disappeared. Still on his board, Collins grabbed Gardiner with one hand and paddled furiously toward shore with the other.
“I looked back and saw the wave that was going to wash us ashore and yelled, ‘We’re going to make it dude,’” Gardiner said.
Safely on shore, the pair decided that no way, no how was either of them going to swim out after Gardiner’s $2,000 custom cedar board. Instead, they contacted skipper Loren Goddard at Dockside Charters in Depoe Bay. With Goddard at the helm of his 36-foot cruiser, the ‘Affair,’ Gardiner and Collins later recovered the board more than a mile north of the attack site.
Surveying the bite radius, Goddard had little doubt about the species that left it.
“I’m saying it was a great white,” he said. “No blue shark is going to have that big of mouth.”
The shark’s teeth cleanly punctured the quarter-inch board and ribbed the fin off.
“I’m just happy he realized it was a wood board and not a seal and didn’t come back for round two,” Gardiner said, surveying the damaged board.
Gardiner does not plan on repairing or using the board again. Instead, he plans to keep it as a memento of one very memorable morning surfing the Oregon coast.
“That’s a story to the grandkids,” Nolan said.
Both surfers work for Grain Surfboards in Maine. They have been on the West Coast holding board-building workshops and are making their way to Los Angeles.
The plan to do plenty more surfing on the way south.
“A shark attack is a once in lifetime thing. So I’m good,” Gardiner said.
Contact reporter Larry Coonrod by email at editor@lincolncountydispatch.com
