AP Photo

Novice kayaker Walter Szulc Jr. says the man on the paddleboard told him about the shark that was tailing him. “To actually see it, to see the fin come out of the water behind me, it was a moment, almost like I was watching it happen to me,” he said.

By Billy Baker Globe Staff

Walter Szulc Jr. was kayaking about 50 yards off Nauset Beach in Orleans on Saturday when he noticed a man on a standup paddleboard pointing at something just behind him.

When he turned to look, it was every swimmer’s worst nightmare: a great white shark.

He said he could see the fin coming out of the water and the long shadow, but not the head. That’s because, he said, the head was underneath him.

“To actually see it, to see the fin come out of the water behind me, it was a moment, almost like I was watching it happen to me,” he said. “It’s hard to explain.”

What he does know is that he never looked back again. “It all happened so quick and I knew I had to react,” he said. “I had a deep swallow, that ‘Oh my God’ moment, then I just paddled.”

Szulc, 41, of Manchester, N.H., had never been in a kayak before that day, and he said he did not notice the commotion on the shore from beachgoers who had spotted the shark. That’s because he was looking for his two teenage children, wanting to showoff to them that he had finally figured out how to land on the beach without falling over in the waves.

The photo of Szulc being pursued by the long shadow has become an Internet sensation, and while he’s had a chance to reflect on it now, he said the chase – he estimates it lasted 60 to 90 seconds before the shark turned away – was all about reactions.