Two Towed by a Shark - Close shave with what may have been a great white

Two East Hampton Town lifeguards quickly realized they had bitten off more than they could chew on Monday when the creature they planned to liberate with their Jet Ski towed them instead, capsized their craft twice, and identified itself as a very, very large shark, possibly a great white.

The drama began when lifeguards watching from their stand at Indian Wells Beach in Amagansett noticed that a white float, marking either a lobster pot or fish trap, was moving against the current about 100 yards from shore. It was a little after noon.

Other guards were completing the endurance swim segment of their recertification test, swimming from shore to about where the buoy was. "It must have cruised right through the area where the endurance swim was," said Sean Thorsen a few hours after experiencing, along with John Ryan Jr., the town's chief lifeguard, one of the scarier rides of his life.

Mr. Ryan said they had decided to launch the Jet Ski to see if a fish, turtle, or marine mammal had become entangled - to free it if it had. "The idea was catch and release," Mr. Thorsen said.

On board was a 15-foot length of polypropylene line that they tied to the buoy line with the idea of towing it, and whatever had fetched up in it, shoreward. That turned out to be a big mistake.

As Mr. Ryan throttled up, the Jet Ski started moving in the opposite direction, backward, fast enough to sink the aft end. It was then the guards saw "a big, triangular dorsal fin." Other than the dorsal, they could clearly see about four feet of the creature's tail section ending in the large tail itself. They said the underside of the tail section was white.

The Jet Ski continued to be pulled backward, making it impossible to disengage the tow rope. "The Jet Ski is 900 pounds and it doesn't go backwards, and with the throttle [engaged]," said Mr. Ryan, still amazed at the shark's power. Then things got even scarier.

The shark altered course, which caused the craft to capsize, tossing the guards into the water. "We turned it over, but then it flipped again. We were lying on the bottom of it," Mr. Ryan said, "but we still had the tow rope and buoy." The shark continued to tow them on their capsized Jet Ski as people on the beach watched. "The whole beach started screaming," Mr. Ryan said.

"The adrenaline was pumping," added his fellow guard, who laughed nervously at the memory of what came next. The guards said they knew they had to get their tow rope off the buoy, but the connection was underwater. "I held his ankles," Mr. Ryan said, as his fellow lifeguard ducked under the Jet Ski with "my eyes open." Mr. Thorsen was successful.

Once free, the guards watched as the white buoy disappeared underwater. Guards stationed at Main Beach in East Hampton were notified. Two other Jet Skis were launched to locate the buoy and the fish that towed it. Mr. Ryan said guards would remain vigilant for the next few days.

The near-shore waters between Atlantic Beach, Amagansett, and Main Beach in East Hampton Village have been frequented by scores of very big, yet harmless basking sharks. However, Nancy Kohler, a shark biologist with the National Marine Fisheries Service laboratory in Narragansett, R.I., said the description of the animal and the fact that it was close to shore were consistent with a great white.

She said a 15-foot-long white shark found its way over a sand bar and into a bay near Woods Hole, Massachusetts, late last September. Fishermen used nets to encourage the big white to swim back to sea.

At press time, neither buoy nor shark had been seen since the lifeguards' close encounter of the scariest kind.