Larry Oberto said he was “glad to be alive” after a 10- to 12-foot-long tiger shark deflated his stand-up paddleboard Tuesday morning offshore from Halama Street in Kihei.

“I’m just glad there was no blood in the water, and I’m not getting stitches,” he said. “It’s a reminder how vulnerable you are in somebody else’s world.”

On Tuesday morning, Oberto had launched from Kamaole Beach Park I in Kihei and went north past Cove Park to the area off Halama Street. He was by himself, listening to music and watching turtles and fish jumping, when he encountered another paddleboarder who asked if Oberto had seen the shark. Oberto said he hadn’t.

“We’re talking, and I see the shark go by,” Oberto said. “I said, ‘Dude, I saw the shark. He’s bigger than my board.’ ”

He lost sight of the shark and decided that, instead of continuing north, he would paddle back toward Kamaole Beach Park I. As soon as he decided that, “it bit my board and knocked me off,” Oberto said.

When he got back on the inflatable paddleboard, “I was going to sink,” he said. “That was not a good feeling.”

The other paddleboarder, who was Alaska Airlines pilot Al “AJ” Gaston, told Oberto to grab his paddle and paddle, not realizing that the paddleboard was sinking.

“He looked at me and said the shark had come up behind me a second time, turned right and rolled over,” Oberto said. “It circled around us.”

Oberto swam to Gaston and got on the back of his board before the two paddled away.

“I wasn’t looking at the shark,” Oberto said. “He was. It probably was scarier for him than it was for me.

“As we were paddling back to shore, it continued to follow us and circle. It didn’t just swim away. It stalked us for half the distance back to shore.”

Oberto, 57, who is semiretired and has a home in Kihei and also lives part-time in downtown Seattle, said he had bought the inflatable paddleboard because he wanted to test out paddleboarding to see if it was an activity he would enjoy.

If he had been lying on the board and paddling, Oberto said his lower left leg would have been bitten.

And if Gaston hadn’t been there, “I would have basically had a decision of swimming 200 yards to shore or swimming to grab my paddle and hanging onto my paddle to defend myself with some creature beneath me,” Oberto said.

“I don’t know what I would have done. Luckily, I didn’t have to make that decision,” he said.

After having a beer with Gaston on Tuesday afternoon, Oberto said he learned that Gaston at first didn’t know Oberto’s paddleboard was sinking. Oberto also learned that his paddle was about 5 feet away from him and that Gaston was about 10 feet away.

“From my perspective, everything seemed really far away,” Oberto said.

He said Gaston, who has studied sharks, said it looked like a tiger shark.

Besides him and Gaston, the only others he saw in the water were two fishermen in a canoe in the distance.

“If I was out there alone, there would have been nobody around to get me but the shark,” Oberto said.

He said it was about 10 in the morning and sunny.

“The water was completely, spotlessly clear,” he said. “It was beautiful.”

After being notified of the incident at about 10:15 a.m., officers from the Department of Land and Natural Resources Division of Conservation and Resources Enforcement posted warning signs 1 mile in each direction from where the shark bite occurred — offshore from 1681 Halama St. — to let oceangoers know a shark could be in the area. The warnings spanned Cove Park to Waipuilani Park.

The warnings will continue until at least noon today, while officers survey the water for continued shark presence, the DLNR said in a news release.

On his next paddleboarding adventure, Oberto said, “I’m definitely going to have a hard paddleboard or only be on a blowup one when I’m not out there by myself.”

“You’re really vulnerable when you’re by yourself and your paddleboard goes flat from a shark bite.” he said.

After racing boats and cars in the United States and Europe, “I’ve led a charmed life,” Oberto said. “And walking away from a shark is one more story to tell.”

* Lila Fujimoto can be reached at lfujimoto@mauinews.com.