BOSTON — A day of fishing in Boston Harbor turned into a once-in-a-lifetime experience for one local man after he and a friend spotted what appeared to be a great white shark swimming just feet from their boat.
Thomas Rocci was returning from a fishing trip last week when his friend noticed a shark fin in the water about 30 yards away.
“It was on the rare occasion that we take a slow ride in,” Rocci said. “My buddy was like, ‘There’s a fin,’ so we checked it out.”
As the pair approached, they realized they were much closer to the animal than they initially thought. Rocci estimates the shark was approximately 12 feet long.
“Safe in the boat, it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, so I definitely wanted to take advantage of it,” Rocci said. “I took the video in point-five zoom, but it was around 12 feet, so it was not small.”
Rocci pulled out his phone and recorded the encounter, capturing video of the large shark swimming alongside the boat.
The sighting comes amid increased shark activity off the Massachusetts coast. According to the Sharktivity app, which tracks shark sightings and detections, at least seven shark sightings were reported off Massachusetts within the past week. Most of those reports have been concentrated around Cape Cod.
Local shark biologists say the waters off Cape Cod are home to some of the highest densities of white sharks in the world.
“We were out striper fishing earlier in the day and saw seals, which wasn’t really ideal for us because they were chasing out all the bait fish,” Rocci said. “We didn’t think anything of it, and then it all kind of looped together and made sense.”
Shark experts say white sharks in the region are typically following seal populations and are generally not interested in humans.
Despite the unexpected encounter, Rocci says the experience hasn’t changed his plans to get back on the water.
“They’re beautiful fish, and it was definitely something cool to take in,” he said.
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