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GARY T. KUBOTA / GKUBOTA@STARBULLETIN.COM Scott Hoyt pointed out to the site where a shark attacked him 200 yards offshore in Kuau, Maui, yesterday as he held up the surfboard punctured by the shark's teeth.

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Surfer escapes shark’s
jaws on Maui

KUAU, Maui » Surfer Scott Hoyt was paddling near a reef about 200 yards off Kuau when a shark bumped his right ankle and threw him off the board.

"He just came out from below and banged the board," said Hoyt, 47, a Reno, Nev., helicopter mechanic. "I felt like I was bait."

The encounter at about 10:30 a.m. yesterday at a surfing site known as "Noriega's" several miles northeast of Kahului left Hoyt feeling lucky to be alive and uninjured.

The 7-foot-10-inch surfboard had six tooth marks on the right rear, including two punctures that went in about a quarter-inch.

The four other tooth marks cut across the right edge of the fiberglass board, and the board's right skeg was chipped.

State aquatic officials shut down water activities yesterday along a 1-mile stretch of ocean from Tavares Bay to Mama's Fish House, including Noriega's.

State aquatic education specialist Russell Sparks said officials will probably determine this morning whether to reopen Kuau for ocean activity.

Sparks said a jet ski patrolling the area yesterday did not see any sharks.

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The last shark attack on Maui involved surfer Willis McInnis in Kahana, West Maui, on April 7, 2004, according to a state Department of Land and Natural Resources Web site. He died from his injuries.

Since 2000 there have been nine confirmed shark attacks on Maui, including the one yesterday, according to state officials.

One of the attacks occurred on Aug. 15, 2000, in Kanaha, several miles southeast of Kuau, and involved a windsurfer who was severely bitten in the lower left leg after falling off his board more than a half-mile offshore.

Recovered tooth fragments from the attack on the windsurfer were consistent with a tiger shark, the Web site said.

Hoyt said he did not know if he was attacked by a tiger shark, and he could not estimate the shark's length. But he remembers holding the board after being thrown from it, turning and seeing the shark's gray head.

"It was sitting on top of the back of the board. It was about a foot and a half wide. ... Then he went under, and I got on the board as fast as I could," Hoyt said.

Hoyt, who lived on Maui for 11 years, said he has never heard of a shark attack in the Kuau area. But he said he has seen sharks while windsurfing in Kuau.

Hoyt said he does not plan to surf in Kuau for a few days, but hopes to surf farther away on the southern shore.

"I'm planning to stay away from here," he said. "There's a hungry shark out there."

Some other surfers indicated they, too, would exercise caution.

"I probably won't go out until next season," said surfer Steven Kornreich.

Kornreich, a Pukalani resident, said he planned to go windsurfing off Noriega's and did not think windsurfing presented the same danger.

"You're not as much in the water," he said.

Hoyt said he has been house-sitting for a friend and using the wife's surfboard.

"I don't know what he's going to think about that," Hoyt said.