As the video shows, the hammerhead repeatedly circled around his kayak while he used his paddle to hit it away more than 20 times.
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The shark hung around for 15 minutes and McCracken even had to beat it off again when he was headed toward shore.
Mark McCracken, 33, was fishing a half-mile off the shore of Santa Barbara at Gaviota State Beach on Saturday when the shark started circling him.
“He was right behind me and I couldn’t tell if we was biting my kayak or head-butting it or what he was doing exactly, but I didn’t want to find out what he was capable of”, McCracken told FOX 5.
A kayaker fought off an aggressive hammerhead shark in an encounter near the Santa Barbara coast that ended with the man making a bee-line back to shore, according to KTLA sister station KSWB. “Pretty weird and insane experience to say the least”, he wrote.
The shark “followed me all the way into about three feet of water”, McCracken said.
He added that hammerhead sharks are known to frequent Southern California waters in El Niño years.
There have been several close encounters with hammerhead sharks and kayakers over the past weeks at SoCal beaches.
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A hammerhead shark made its way to the first shore cut about five miles south of the Bob Hall Pier on Kleberg County beach.
