Erica Fox, a 55‑year‑old triathlete, vanished while swimming in Monterey Bay on Dec. 21, 2025, with her husband Jean‑Francois Vanreusel and other members of the Kelp Krawlers club. The Santa Cruz County sheriff’s office said officers recovered her body Saturday south of Davenport Beach. The recovered remains still bore her white Garmin watch and an electromagnetic shark‑deterrent band fastened to her ankle, a device marketed to ward off sharks even though experts doubt its effectiveness.
Vanreusel, who led a vigil for his wife on Sunday, told the Mercury News, “She didn’t want to live in fear. She lived her life fully.” He added that Fox had been wearing the shark‑deterrent band at the time of the attack.
Fox was a seasoned triathlete who had completed two half‑Ironmans and helped launch the Kelp Krawlers, an open‑water swimming club she co‑founded. Fellow club member Steve Bruemmer, who survived a great‑white shark bite in 2022, recalled, “I was also bitten by a shark, and I can tell you that it doesn’t hurt. I don’t understand why, but it’s not physically painful to be badly bitten. So I hope that in her final moments, Erica was not suffering in pain. And I hope that can be some comfort to people.” Bruemmer said the incident also reminded swimmers that “tomorrow is not guaranteed.”
Experts note that shark attacks along the California coast are exceedingly rare—much less common than being struck by lightning or mauled by a bear. Fox’s death is the second fatal attack at Lovers Point in the past 73 years; the first claimed a 17‑year‑old boy in Dec. 1952. In the wake of the 2022 attack on Bruemmer, many Kelp Krawlers members began wearing similar electromagnetic “Sharkbanz” bands despite limited evidence that the devices can deter fast‑moving predatory sharks.