‘Is that a shark?’ See the video shared by Santa Barbara foil surfers

Two foil surfers shared video of what appears to be a dorsal fin, possibly that of a shark, slicing through the water behind one of them in a wild scene off the Santa Barbara coast over the weekend.

Longtime friends Tavis Boise and Ron Takeda were on foil boards — surfboards with an underwater wing that raises the board above the water’s surface — heading from UC Santa Barbara to Carpinteria when Takeda heard and spotted what looks like a dorsal fin carving through the water behind him.

“I heard the noise. I looked back. I saw trailing white water,” Takeda told NBC Los Angeles.

In a video recorded by a GoPro that was connected to Boise’s paddle, Takeda asks, “Is that a shark?”

“Yeah, don’t fall,” Boise replied in the video.

“I look back, and I can clearly see there is a main dorsal fin right behind him,” Boise said. “And then there’s the tail fin, which is switching back, back and forth in the water, kind of thrashing to keep up with them. And it’s an immediate click. I know it’s a shark.”

It’s unclear if the fin seen in the video belongs to a shark, dolphin or something else, but a marine biologist told NBCLA it appears to be a mako shark chasing Takeda.

NBCLA reached out to another marine wildlife expert who said he has never seen a white shark behave in the manner seen in the video, certainly not for that long.

“I knew I had to concentrate not to come off foil. I kept my head down and completely stayed on foil,” Takeda said.

Takeda stayed on his board, and whatever was following him apparently got bored, as Boise chased behind.

“I ended up catching up to Ron maybe two miles later,” Boise said. “And I come up behind him, and I’m like, ‘Ron, are you OK?’ And the first thing he says was, ‘Wow, it’s really good out here.'”

For the skeptics, the pair posted a follow-up video to say this was a survivor’s story generated underwater — not in the cyberspace.

“It was not AI,” Takeda said in the video. “We don’t even know anything about AI… I wish it was AI.”