Tuesday was typical of the last few days for surfers at San Onofre State Beach. The marine layer gave way to sunshine early, the waves were small, rolling in slowly and gently -- and much of the chatter, in and out of the water, was about sharks.
"Everybody's talking about them but sharks have always been here," said Bruce Price, 56, after a morning surf just north of Old Man's, a spot popular among longboarders because of the easy way in which the waves break. "There are a lot of sharks between here and Catalina. I'm not too concerned."
In other words, you'd have to be a surfer to understand that very few things will keep them out of the water.
Lifeguards, scientists and campers, meanwhile, have expressed varying degrees of concern about an apparent increase in shark visits close to shore recently at the southern end of the park near San Clemente. Some of the sharks are large and at least one has been identified as an adult great white.
"Maybe they have good karma and don't have to worry," Robert Lea, a Department of Fish and Game biologist in Monterey, said of the surfers and their attitudes. Lea was only half-joking, having been present for the autopsy on a Central California swimmer killed by a 15- to 18-foot great white last week off Avila Beach.
That incident was followed by reports of frequent shark sightings off San Onofre, made by Marines in helicopters from nearby Camp Pendleton. Those sightings, first reported Friday in The Times, have since become public knowledge and San Onofre has suddenly gained a notoriety nobody thought it would ever have.
Michael Domeier, president of the Pfleger Institute of Environmental Research in nearby Oceanside, referred to the Trail One area near the southern edge of the state beach -- about a mile south of Old Man's -- as "a shark magnet" and questioned the sanity of anyone paddling out there.
"You wouldn't enter a grizzly exhibit at the zoo," Domeier said. "Only people with no brains in their skulls would be out there right now."
Lifeguards, meanwhile, were keeping a close eye on the surf zone, trying not to let hype affect their decision-making. They've put up signs warning of an increase in shark sightings but have not closed any of the park's beaches.
"We've seen sharks at Trail One for years -- mostly what we think are mako and thresher sharks," said Brandon Boisseranc, a state beach lifeguard for the last eight years. "Our guards have even paddled out to see if they could tell what kind they were."
