Former 'Survivor' contestant's canoe bitten by '11 to 12-foot' great white shark in California

A champion outrigger canoe racer and former "Survivor" contestant in Southern California is "appreciating every day" after a great white shark, reportedly measuring between 11 and 12 feet, took of bite out of her new canoe.

The woman, Julie Wolfe, was around two miles off the Oceanside Harbor shore on Monday when she says what "felt like a car" rammed into her boat from underneath. Being a 25-year veteran of the sport, she immediately knew what caused the bump, and began paddling back to shore as fast as possible.

"It's been a day already," she told Fox 5 News on Thursday. "I tell ya — my heart is still racing now."

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She recalls worrying it was following her back to shore, and about a minute into the paddle she felt a tug on her paddle. She says she kept the pace while thinking about her kids.

When she hit sand safely, she examined the boat, and found "slashes, scrapes and holes resembling a bite."

After speaking with Harbor Patrol and the Shark Research Institute, KGTV reports, it was determined that the bite came from a large great white shark. An expert with the latter organization reportedly told Wolfe that she was probably paddling though its feeding area and that it wanted her to move on.

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"The sharks live in the ocean," she told KGTV. "That's their home, and we're entering it."

Wolfe has no plans to stop paddling in the ocean.

Alyssa Pereira is an SFGATE staff writer. Email her at apereira@sfchronicle.com or find her on Twitter at @alyspereira.

