Watch a Hefty Great White Shark Block Surfer from Catching a Wave in San Diego
According to a study conducted by Cal State Long Beach's Shark Lab, great white sharks are swimming near people in San Diego waters 97% of the time.
That probably doesn't come as a surprise, considering how often drones capture sharks and people coexisting.
Most of the footage of great white sharks cruising around surfers does come from the San Diego coastline. Just last week a beefy great white approached a longboarder in San Diego. Shortly before that, a great white was hunting stingrays when it stumbled upon another surfer taking a mid-session swim.
There's a lot of clips out there showing great white cruising by surfers, but the encounter in the clip above seems a little different.
The drone footage above was shot by wildlife photographer Preston Dau. In it, a surfer encounters a very brazen great white shark while surfing in the La Jolla area in San Diego.
Dau posted the clip over the weekend and captioned it:
"Can’t say that i wasn’t worried when filming this."
"Worried" is a bit of an understatement.
The clip shows a surfer in murky water turning around to paddle for a wave as a great white shark sits still behind him.
As the surfer gets into position and starts paddling for the wave, the shark suddenly bolts right in front of the surfer, basically blocking him from catching the wave.
Luckily, the shark keeps going.
By all appearances, it looks like the surfer definitely saw the shark and tried to catch the next wave in.
One viewer said what everyone was probably thinking:
"That surfer has balls and nerves of steel ... Wow..."
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