A wild meeting with a high-flying shark caught on camera in Maine is going viral.
In August, a group on a fishing trip with Captain Dave Sinclair of Sea Ventures Charters got the show of a lifetime from a cobalt blue mako shark that landed on their boat while it was roughly 15 to 20 miles from Monhegan Island.
"We tag and release sharks for research," Sinclair said in an interview Tuesday, but despite decades on the water and handling hundreds of sharks, he said nothing like the mako's visit has ever happened to him before.
Adding to the excitement, Sinclair's client, Kris Kingsbury, was filming the shark jumping close to the boat and captured the exact moment it landed on the deck with a thud.
"All of a sudden, here he was in my face," said Sinclair's 15-year-old grandson, Cameron, who has been on working with his grandfather on charters since he was a toddler.
"I feel him hit the side of my face with his tail and then he lands by my right foot," Cameron said.
The moment was particularly remarkable to him because, he said, even though he has spent years on his grandfather's boat, he had not seen his first mako shark until early August.
Then, this second shark essentially fell out of the sky in front of him.
"You kind of feel like there's no way this is happening," he recalled, noting that the amazement at what had happened was not the initial thought on his mind.
Get updates on what's happening in New England to your inbox. Sign up for our News Headlines newsletter.
Both he and his grandfather were worried the shark had hit someone or could hurt one of the people on the boat with its teeth.
"My first thoughts were injuries," Dave Sinclair said. "We had a boat of young guys, one young gentleman was fighting the fish."
Fortunately, despite the face-to-fin encounter, no one was hurt and within seconds the mako was tagged and back in the water.
The memory remains — along with a viral video, viewed tens of thousands of times.
"I don't think I'm ever going to be that surprised again," Cameron Sinclair said.
