Sometimes humans aren’t always the ones in need of a lifeguard during heavy surf. A shark pup, noticed by a few bystanders at the north end of Rincon Beach Park on Sunday afternoon, was rescued by a kayaker.

Of course, unlike the beach rescues you may have witnessed before, this one involved carrying the victim back out to sea.

Santa Barbara resident Michael Lewis witnessed the incident, capturing most of it on video on his iPhone and then e-mailing it to Noozhawk.

“The shark kept getting caught in an onshore current and a kayaker took it out about 100 feet offshore,” said Lewis, noting that bystanders had tried to turn the animal around to point it out toward deeper water, but that it appeared confused and kept swimming toward the beach.

“It looked weird — it was all turned around,” Lewis said. “There was a south swell Sunday, but after the kayaker took it out it didn’t come back again.”

A day earlier, authorities reported that the carcass of a young great white shark had washed ashore near Rincon Point.

— Noozhawk staff writer Ben Preston can be reached at bpreston@noozhawk.com.