MAKENA, Maui, Hawaii -- A visitor from Minnesota had a frightening encounter with a shark on Maui on Wednesday.

The shark encounter happened between the Molokini Crater and Makena off the Maui coast in the morning. Dan Lankheit, 57, was kayaking with a friend when he said a huge shark nudged his kayak and wouldn't stop following him.

Lankheit and his friend, Bob, were kayaking halfway between Molokini Crater and Makena when the shark appeared.

"I felt something and looked down and this shark brushed my kayak," Lankheit said.

Lankheit said he turned around to check on Bob, who was trailing him by about 150 feet.

"I yelled to Bob, 'Great white,'" Lankheit said. "All I saw was the side of it, as he brushed up against me I saw his eye look at me. Then he just disappeared."

Lankheit kept paddling, hoping the 15- to 18-foot shark would tire and stop following him.

"I saw the dorsal fin following me and I thought, 'This is not a good thing,'" Lankheit said.

The shark pursued him for about 15 minutes. That's when a boat full of snorkelers from the Maui Dive Shop approached the kayakers.

"I started waving at 'em, 'Please come here,'" Lankheit said.

"When he waved us over, I could see there was a pretty large animal behind him," said Capt. Rae Eckert Stewart, of Maui Dive Shop. "He was just, you know, swimming along, looking at the kayak."

Stewart said the shark had a quite a large head and was swimming close to the surface.

"It didn't swim away right away, until I got close to it and then it didn't veer away from the kayaker. And then, I just gunned the engine a little bit to make some noise and it took off right away," Stewart said.

When the shark swam off, Stewart stopped her 36-foot boat and took the two men and their kayaks to shore.

Lankheit was a bit shaken, but Stewart said he was in good shape.

"He did a good thing. He stayed very calm. He was just paddling slowly," Stewart said.

The state land department has not determined what kind of shark it was, but it is investigating the encounter. The state also notified hotels and resorts on that stretch of beach.