"Lewis (Samuels), the first guy I paddled over to, said I was gone for five seconds," Fraley said. "I basically paddled on top of his surfboard."

Yesterday, and the day before, in the interests of securing enough hits to see our traffic soar past Stab and The Inertia, mission complete etc, we ran a series of Great White stories involving the surf writer Lewis Samuels.

In the first, Lew recalled the day he saw another surfer, Royce Fraley, in the jaws of a Great White, which subsequently let him go. Lew said he paddled over to help and described, in detail, the attack and the escape from White Death in 2006.

“They fell down in an explosion of whitewater, like when a whale breaches. Fifteen feet is as big as a car and they’re a lot fatter in person than you’d think they would be. And he was in the fish’s mouth and there was this fucking impact in the water and then there was nothing there, gone, like a fucking whirlpool of displaced whitewater where he’d been,” said Lew.

The next story was Fraley’s debunking of Lew’s version,

“The bottom line is that he paddled away from me the whole time, at no time did he help me,” he wrote.

Now, from the archives of the San Francisco Chronicle, Fraley tells the story differently. 

“As I’m going down, I’m literally thinking about my kids and my family,” he said. “I’ve been tumbled 100 yards by one whitewater and held on. I just thought I could ride this out and tried to remain positive. As I was going down, it felt like a high rate of speed. … On two occasions, my body bounced off the side of the shark. Then all of a sudden I was released and I just flew back to the top.

“Lewis (Samuels), the first guy I paddled over to, said I was gone for five seconds,” Fraley said. “Soon as I came back up to the top, I just started paddling like there was no tomorrow over to him. I basically paddled on top of his surfboard.”

To further complicate matters, five years after the attack Lew wrote a story for Surfer magazine about sharks and northern California, which included an interview with Fraley.

The Red Triangle, a hazy region of fear, is defined by that notion, stretching along the California coast from Monterey to Bodega Bay. If you want to know what classifies a spot as sharky, Royce Fraley is a good person to ask. He’s not an expert on White Sharks, but his experiences speak for themselves: In 1997 he was “torpedoed” by a White near Bodega Bay. The shark hit him hard enough to launch him into the air, but did not bite. In 2002, Royce applied first aid when a local was attacked at their home break. And in December 2006, Royce was attacked himself, dragged beneath the surface, while I watched from a hundred yards away. 

Questions:

Why would Fraley agree to an interview with Lew if he believed he had left him to die four years earlier?

Why did Fraley fail to correct the draft of the Surfer story, which was emailed to him for fact checking prior to it appearing in print?

And why did Fraley tell various news outlets conflicting accounts of the attack?

(Editor’s note: seeking clarification and comment from the attack-ee.)

"WSL strives to provide a global stage for its Surfers to showcase their talent in a fair, independent and impartial environment."

Professional longboarder Joel Tudor is known for three things: a peerless old-school longboard style, jiu jitsu, Instagram, conspiracy theories and marijuana. Oh he makes no secret of his appreciation for the marijuana plant and all its sundry glories. I imagine, if you catch him in the right mood, he could rattle off all the ways marijuana can be consumed, much like the shrimper Bubba in Forrest Gump. “You can smoke it, eat it, suck on it, dab it, vape it, rub it on your skin, drink it in tea, drink it in coffee, drink it in a smoothie…”

Now, I think marijuana is a wonderful gift, so much better than nasty opioids for pain etc. but the World Surf League disagrees and has it on its list of banned substances. Shall we read it together?

1. Amphetamine (Stimulant)
2. Natural cannabinoids, e.g. cannabis, hashish and marijuana (Cannaboids)
3. Synthetic cannabinoids e.g. 9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and other
cannabimimetics. (Cannaboids)
4. Cocaine (Stimulant)
5. Gammabutyrolactone (GBL)
6. Gamma-Hydroxybutanoic acid (GHB)
7. Heroin (diacetylmorphine) (Narcotic)
8. Lysergide (LSD)
9. Methamphetamine
10. 3,4-Methylenedioxyamphetamine (MDA)
11. 3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) (Stimulant)
12. Psilocin
13. Psilocybin
14. Methadone (Narcotic)
15. Morphine (Narcotic)
16. Oxycodone (Narcotic)
17. Fentanyl (Narcotic)
18. Pethidine (Narcotic)
19. Oxymorphone
20. Hydromorphone
21. Dimethylamphetamine (Stimulant)
22. Benzphetamine (Stimulant)
23. Methylephedrine (Stimulant)
24. Pseudoephedrine (Stimulant)
25. Ephedrine (Stimulant)
26. Cathine (L and D-norpseudoephedrine) (Stimulant)
27. Benzylpiperazine (BZP) (Stimulant)

See right there at number two? “Natural cannabinoids, e.g. cannabis, hashish and marijuana (Cannaboids).” Ahead of both cocaine, heroin, morphine and fentanyl.

Well, Joel is surfing in his first World Surf League contest right now, the Longboard Classic, New York. He won his round one heat, won his round two heat, won his round three heat but lost his round four heat to the fiery Frenchman we all got to know last week but still advanced and then lost his round five heat, getting drummed from the event.

A fine run by any measure, made more fine in my opinion, by his open flaunting of Santa Monica’s ultra-square “rules.”

And before you tell me that Joel consumes CBD might I remind you that CBD is still a cannabinoid.

Joel is not only the rebel we need, he’s the rebel we deserve.

Famed surf writer Lewis Samuels' account of saving a man from the jaws of great white death has been one of our favs! But is it true? Maybe no!

Yesterday, I had a very transparent swing at mainstream news clicks with a repurposed story of a Great White attack.

The Great White and the world’s fascination with the wonderful creature has driven our traffic into the sorta territory Surfline can only dream about, three million uniques a month and beyond. An aggregated piece about the sharks in Cape Cod has hit half-a-million reads and climbing. Insane numbers.

Anyway, yesterday’s story about the noted, but now retired, surf writer Lewis Samuels paddling over to save a friend, Royce Fraley, who had been launched out of the water by a Great White shark while surfing in northern California, has an amusing coda.

First, a recap.

Lew’s version.

“Out of the corner of my eye there was this explosion. And as I turned around, I saw the shark breeching out of the water with him in its mouth. Then they fell down in an explosion of whitewater, like when a whale breaches. Fifteen feet is as big as a car and they’re a lot fatter in person than you’d think they would be. And he was in the fish’s mouth and there was this fucking impact in the water and then there was nothing there, gone, like a fucking whirlpool of displaced whitewater where he’d been. There was no one else near him, just another friend way up the line, and so when the attack happened, what are you fucking going to do? You’re not going to leave your friend out there.”

But, said, Lew, “Let me be fucking honest. My first fucking response was to paddle away. But I thought about it, he was my friend, and whether or not he comes up he needs my help. And so I paddled back over, got there and he popped up out of the water and he pretty much paddled up onto my back, literally, trying to get out of the water. I said, ‘It’s alright, man! Hold on! I’ll paddle you in, man!”

The surfer in the mouth of the Great White, Royce Fraley, who’s been hit twice by Whites, remembers it differently.

After our original story was published, we received this.

And from the website, Confessions of a Surfer Girl, 

With the increasing swell, Fraley took his time getting back to the lineup, pacing himself for more waves. He rested on his brand new 7’6″ big wave board and as he was gliding over the channel, the water around him began to boil like a cauldron, the right side of his board lifted out of the water and Fraley rolled off the board.

“It was almost like the shark was a submarine surfacing,” said Fraley. “His bottom jaw hit the underside of my board and I started rolling off as the shark bit down.”

Fraley felt a sting in his right  hip as the shark dove down with Fraley’s 10-foot big wave leash wrapped around it’s mouth. As Fraley instinctively grabbed ahold of his board for flotation, the shark dove even deeper beneath the surface with Fraley in tow. In the time spent below the surface, he experienced a gamut of emotions beginning with strong denial, anger and pain–to acceptance.

“There’s a part of me that accepted what was happening, I felt peaceful,” said Fraley.  “Right when I felt that, I bumped off the side of the shark. It felt like someone pushed my whole right side up against a school bus.”

When Fraley reached the surface, incredibly shaken, he paddled towards a surfer, who immediately paddled away from him towards shore, and Fraley was left to make the long paddle on his own. 

Real talk.

I believe, in my heart, that if I saw a friend in the mouth of a Great White I, too, would flee.

No need for two people to suffer etc.