Jeffreys Bay, South Africa is notoriously sharky.
There was, of course, the infamous encounter that 3x surfing World Champion Mick Fanning had with a great white, mid-heat, back in 2015. Then, back in May, a 50-year-old man was badly attacked by a shark while surfing Supertubes. (He survived.)
And now, with the world’s best surfers in town for the Corona Open J-Bay, the sharks haven’t gone anywhere; check out the clip below.
Nathan Florence shared the video, via his videographer, Zoard, with the caption:
“Some groms came in down the point and said they had seen a big great white close enough to see its eyes! Had @zoard throw the drone up to see if we could spot it sure enough shark was cruising up the point!
“Tried to alert @riowaida_ with drone it was nearing him and call people on beach to let the surfers know it was swimming right through lineup!
“All turned out well everyone went in and and the shark just cruised its way up the point and went on its way! What a crazy thing to watch we know we playing in their home but to see how easily and mellow they can approach undetected is wild! @iangentil actually sprayed it”
A slew of CT surfers, on location at Jeffreys Bay, chirped in the comments:
“Oh my gosh that’s crazy clip” – Rio Waida
“Heavyyyyy @eli_beukes it had a look bru” – Leonardo Fioravante
“FUCK” – Italo Ferreira
And adding a bit of local knowledge, South African Grant “Twiggy” Baker chimed in:
“The only reason you see them is because the waters clean, they come past every day sniffing toes.”
Spooky. Watch them toes while surfing J-Bay.
With all the surveillance the WSL has going on during the event, it’s not uncommon at the Corona Open J-Bay for heats to be put on pause due to a shark sighting. Stay tuned for (potentially) more of that when competition resumes.
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