Chilling moment: Great white shark slips between three surfers at the South African surfing championships and appears to line up one to attack…then decides it’s not on the menu
- The images were taken at a surfing championship at Jeffreys Bay in South Africa.
This is the chilling moment captured on film in which a great white shark silently slips between three surfers, blissfully unaware that death is only feet away.
The nine-foot-long man-eater made his startling appearance at the same surfing championships where a competitor survived an attack on live TV in 2015.
A drone was dispatched after reports of a great white shark behind the surf line and it can be seen swimming along the shoreline towards a dozen of the world’s best surfers.
Unbelievably, as the killing machine heads towards two unaware competitors, a third sails almost over his head without realizing that he is in the wave right below him.
The Great White then lines up a surfer looking around trying to catch a wave at the 2023 Corona Open J-Bay stage of the Men’s Surfing Championship.
As the great white shark heads towards two unsuspecting competitors, a third sails almost over his head not realizing that he is in the wave right below him.
One of the surfers can be seen paddling out as the shark approaches Jeffreys Bay in South Africa.
He then maneuvers right behind the surfer for the perfect attack position and then decides that the surfer isn’t on the menu for today and slowly walks away.
Professional surfer Nathan Florence, 29, from Hawaii, posted on his Facebook page the incredible drone footage taken by a friend at Jeffreys Bay in South Africa.
He said: “It was pretty crazy when we saw some guys rushing in and I asked them what the problem was and they said they saw a huge white shark go by.”
“I was close enough, they said, to see its eyes, so we quickly brought the drone up to see if it was there and sure enough, it was swimming towards the world tour surfers.”
“We tried to warn the first guy with the drone because we were far away and he put his legs up but he didn’t see the shark and then the shark looked at another surfer.”
We alerted the people on the beach who alerted the surfers and they all got in and the shark sailed its way to shore and everyone went on with their day.
What a crazy chance to see such a shark! South Africa is amazing!’ he said.
The shark can be seen swimming just offshore in Jeffreys Bay in South Africa.
The shark approaches two of the surfers who are paddling their boards
The camera zooms in on one of the surfers as he paddles out close to the shark.
The shark cuts through one of the waves as a surfer rides it before swimming towards the two surfers.
The shark stays close to the surfers as they paddle around it.
Professional surfer Nathan Florence, 29, from Hawaii, posted on his Facebook page the incredible drone footage taken by a friend at Jeffreys Bay in South Africa.
Great whites can grow up to 20 feet long and weigh 2 tons and have up to 300 razor-sharp serrated teeth arranged in rows in their giant jaws for hunting prey.
They can swim up to 35 mph and typically feast on seals, sea lions and dolphins, but can mistake wetsuit-wearing humans for what they naturally eat and then bite.
In the last 25 years 37 people have been killed by sharks off South Africa and this time of year when sardines happen they are very active.
In 2015, Australian three-time world champion Mick Fanning, then 39, was seen on live television being attacked by a great white shark, but managed to fight it off.
The last major white murder was pizzeria owner Kimon Bisogno, 39, in Plettenberg Bay in September, just along the shoreline where he swam.
A gruesome photo here shows the massive damage great whites can cause, but this 38-year-old victim attacked in Jeffreys Bay two years ago luckily survived.
