HONOLULU (KHON) — Sixteen-year-old Kannon Allen seems like a typical teenager. He goes to school, makes YouTube videos and loves going to the beach.
His most recent spearfishing trip was anything but typical, however.
“My mom wanted an uhu so we went out there,” Allen said. “It was 40 feet of water and I seen the shark swim by.”
Allen said he sees sharks all of the time and they always just move along. It was different this time.
“Not all the time they chase us all the way into the inside,” Allen said. “It actually followed us all the way from outside in 40 feet of water, over a shallow reef, onto this inside little bay.”
It was low tide at the time and Allen says he had to walk over a dry reef to get to shore, but not even that stopped the shark.
“So we had to walk over a dry reef to get into the inside and we had to swim in, and I was just like laughing,” he said. “I was laughing because I was like ‘bruh a shark came inside the bay,’ and I was tripping out.”
Allen believes the shark was after his catch, which was strung onto a buoy.
Shark expert Dr. Kim Holland with the University of Hawaii’s Institute of Marine Biology agrees.
Dr. Holland says it was a blacktip shark, which live in coastal waters. They usually stay away from humans unless there is food involved.
Allen said, he is not letting the close encounter stop him from getting back into the water.
“I been diving and fishing my whole life here on Kauai,” Allen said. “I love it. It’s amazing being in the water and being able to do such a fun sport.”