Shark sighting close beach at Kekaha By LESTER CHANG TGI Staff The Kaua’i County Ocean Safety Bureau closed off one mile of coastline at Kekaha Beach after three black-tip sharks were spotted in murky shoreline water Saturday morning. The sharks,
Shark sighting close beach at Kekaha
By LESTER CHANG
TGI Staff
The Kaua’i County Ocean Safety Bureau closed off one mile of coastline at Kekaha Beach after three black-tip sharks were spotted in murky shoreline water Saturday morning.
The sharks, estimated between six and eight feet long, were seen by a beachgoer and a county lifeguard “splashing” just 10 feet from the coastline between St. Theresa’s Church and the Kekaha Neighborhood Center at 8 a.m. By 8:30 a.m. the sharks had left.
No one was in the water when the sharks were sighted, according to Roy Yamagata, a temporary supervisor with the Ocean Safety Bureau.
Yamagata said a beachgoer saw the first shark and called the Waimea Fire Station at 8 a.m.
Fire officials subsequently called Yamagata, who dispatched a lifeguard who confirmed the sighting and saw two more sharks with the first shark.
At 10 a.m., the Ocean Safety Bureau closed one mile of beach southeast from the county lifeguard station at Kekaha to the Navy’s Pacific Missile Range Facility.
As a precaution, a lifeguard patrolled the beaches in an amphibious all-terrain vehicle to warn people not to swim in the water. Safety signs also were posted.
As part of the division’s policy following a shark sighting, the affected beach will be closed for 24 hours before it is reopened, Yamagata said .
Yamagata said the sharks were in the area looking for food after runoff into the ocean from heavy showers this past week.
“The whole oceanfront area is muddy,” Yamagata said. “They were looking for food.”
The shark sightings came five days after Hokuanu Aki, a 17-year-old Kauai High School senior, was attacked at Brennecke Beach near Po’ipu Beach Monday what by is believed to be a tiger shark.
Doctors amputated his leg above the knee. Aki is now recovering at the Queen’s Medical Center in Honolulu.
In the aftermath of the attack, a visitor reported a shark offshore of the Lawai Beach Resort in Koloa on Wednesday, Yamagata said, along a shoreline popular with surfers, divers and swimmers. The shark sighting could not be confirmed, but a lifeguard buzzed the water aboard a motorized water craft to scare away any sharks, Yamagata said.
As a precaution, Yamagata’s division closed the beaches in the area. The beaches have since been reopened for public use.
In related matters, Haena Beach State Park was closed to swimming yesterday after powerful waves – the face of some reaching as high as 30 feet – plowed into the North Shore.
