They’re still out there. State experts tagged two sharks off the coast of Orleans Thursday after numerous reports of great whites swimming near the area’s ocean-facing beaches.
Division of Marine Fisheries shark expert Greg Skomal said a team on a fishing vessel used its harpoon tagging technique to tag the sharks. He estimated the sharks were 14 feet and 16 feet long.
The pair was found within 100 yards of Orleans’s shores, he said.
An aerial photograph taken by Will Osier of Cape Cod Shark Hunters showed beachgoers racing to catch the spectacle as a boat zeroed in on one of the sharks, with harpooner Bill Chaprales standing at the bow in the harpooner’s “pulpit.”
On Wednesday, several beaches from the Orleans/Chatham line to Monomoy Island were closed because sharks were sighted near swimmers.
The team has tagged 11 sharks so far this summer, Skomal said.