No, "Jaws" the movie didn't do it for me. But a Great White more or less ended my surfing days. I was 15 and surfing Linda Mar beach in Pacifica CA. It was a rare sunny day as oppposed to the usual cold and drizzle and the beach was crowded with-out-of towners. Surf was about four foot max which isn't greatand it was so crowded, a friend suggested that we go rock climbing out on Pedro Point. This was a forbidden act with a $45 fine if you got caught, big money in 1964 but hey! we were young and dumb.

About half way out on the big rocks (which is another harrowing story in itself) we saw a Coast Guard helicopter coming and thought that someone may have turned us in. We were ducking and hiding as it circled bout a couple of times. It broke from our location and continued to quarter the near coastline for a couple of hours. A few times it swung back our way but we didn't seem to be his quarry.

After we finally got back to the beach we learned that a young lad from Burlinggame, just over the hill from Pacifica, had been pulled off his surfboard in the exact location we had been surfing about an hour after we had left. He was never found, just a bloody T-shirt.

We had all been "bumped" a time or two by unknown critters under the waves but never bitten or attacked. It was usually a seal or a two foot sand shark which never bit but this incident made me stop and think, long and hard. I surfed a few more times but gave it up and finally sold my board. That's not how I want to go.