A North Shore surfer was recovering Tuesday in the hospital after undergoing surgery — the victim of a New Year’s Eve shark bite that left her with a gory leg wound.
Marjorie Mariano was bitten by a shark she estimated was over 12 feet long around 6 p.m. Sunday during a surf session near Laniakea Beach.
“Thanks God … I’m alive!” she wrote in an Instagram post.
The shark bit the underside of Mariano’s board and her left leg from her upper thigh to the back of her knee, photos she posted showed.
Mariano, 54, had surgery and was doing well but is scheduled for more surgery today at The Queen’s Medical Center.
Ricardo Taveira, a friend of Mariano’s, said the new year holds good prospects for her with anticipation of a full recovery. However, it was a painful 2017 for his friend. Taveira said Mariano was close to fellow Brazilian and North Shore resident Telma Boinville, who was killed last month near Pupukea Beach Park in a vacation rental home she had been cleaning.
“That was her best friend,” Taveira said.
According to the Hawaii Actors Network, Mariano is a surfer, surf instructor, singer, dancer and lifeguard.
Taveira said Mariano was in the water with a nearly full moon rising when the shark bit her.
According to the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, six people in Hawaii had run-ins with sharks last year, which was down from 10 attacks or encounters in each of the two prior years and the same number as 2014.
Last year three of the incidents were on Oahu, two were on Kauai and one was on Maui. In four cases there were injuries. One person suffered lacerations to the leg below the knee while surfing at Makaha Beach; one person had minor lacerations to the hand while surfing in Kekaha on Kauai; and one person suffered severe injuries to the lower leg while surfing at the same Kauai beach, Davidsons. Mariano was the fourth case. In the two other cases, a shark bit the tail of a stand-up paddler’s board at White Plains Beach on Oahu, and a shark brushed up against a snorkeler in Kihei, Maui.
Some North Shore residents have expressed concern or speculated that a humpback whale carcass that had been floating along the coast recently may have raised the risk of shark bites for ocean users.
DLNR reported that a private dive company towed a carcass 8 miles out to sea off the North Shore the day after Christmas. That was six days before Mariano was attacked. The same whale carcass, or possibly that of a different humpback, got stuck shortly thereafter on a reef just off Marine Corps Base Hawaii in Kaneohe and was hauled onto land Saturday.
Sharks often feed on whale carcasses, but DLNR officials said there would not have been more sharks in nearshore waters of the North Shore because of the carcass being in the area several days earlier.
“Sharks would follow the carcass, so they would not remain in the North Shore surf break areas,” DLNR said in a statement. “With the wave action and currents, no residual odors or bits of whale flesh is going to stay there for long. There is not likely any connection between the earlier presence of the whale and the Laniakea incident.”
Taveira, who owns dive company Hawaii Eco Divers in Haleiwa and surfs, said he sees sharks all the time while diving and is comfortable that the animals usually recognize that people diving are not what they want to eat. But the chances for misunderstandings are greater, he said, when surfers are sitting on or paddling a board on the water’s surface.
“When you’re surfing, that’s the problem,” he said. “You look like the prey. When you’re on your board waiting, there’s nothing that lets them know you’re not part of their food chain.”
Taveira said it’s too bad Mariano was attacked. “She’s a good girl,” he said, “always in the water cheering everybody up.”
Taveira started a GoFundMe campaign online to raise money to help Mariano with her medical bills and other expenses while laid up off work. As of Tuesday afternoon, about 24 hours after being listed, the campaign has raised about $8,500 toward a $20,000 goal.
