Huntington Beach Closed the Ocean Until 3pm
By Scott Willson · 2026-10-22
My favorite part of this whole story is that Huntington Beach closed the ocean until 3pm Wednesday, like the shark has a shift that ends. Somebody at the fire department looked at a 12 foot great white circling Tower 16 and decided he’d probably be gone by 3, and nobody knows that, including the shark.
And the reason they called it aggressive is because it was circling. Circling is what sharks do, that’s like half of their whole thing. We built a city on the edge of their house and put on black wetsuits that make us look exactly like seals, so the shark isn’t being aggressive, he’s being a shark.
Honestly the ocean has always freaked me out. You can’t see more than a few feet down, and the only thing between you and a 12 foot shark is a lifeguard trying to spot a fin from the sand. I’ll go in up to my knees and that’s about it.
But you know half the guys in Huntington Beach paddled out anyway. These are the same dudes who surf through brown water after a rainstorm and call it a good session, so a sign that says shark sighted was never going to stop them.
Header photo: Surfacing great white by Terry Goss, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
