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MELBOURNE: A dramatic close encounter between Australian world championship surfer Matt Wilkinson and a shark off the country’s east coast was captured by a drone, circling it, zooming in and then moving away from its feet.
Wilkinson was paddling from a swell at Sharpes Beach, 733 km north of Sydney, when the shark swam towards him and then under his surfboard on Wednesday (October 7), and the drama was captured on a drone used by lifeguards to keep an eye on the sharks.
The 1.3-meter great white shark then circled and swam to Wilkinson’s feet, which were crawling in the water, and quickly moved away.
“I was surfing the backside of Sharpes Beach and surfing on my own,” Wilkinson, a former professional surfer, said in a press release issued by Surf Life Saving NSW.
“I heard a splash and a noise and I looked around and couldn’t see anything. So the drone came down and told me there was a dangerous shark in the area,” he said.
“I realized how close he was without knowing I was there. I called my wife because I didn’t want her to see the images before I saw them. She doesn’t want me to browse for a couple of days.”
Wilkinson competed in a world championship tie just before Australian Mick Fanning’s encounter with a great white shark at Jeffreys Bay in South Africa in 2015, which he fought with a punch.
The area around where Wilkinson was surfing has a reputation for sharks and has been the scene of a number of attacks over the years.
A 46-year-old surfer died last month on a Gold Coast beach after sustaining serious leg injuries from a shark attack, and Australia recorded a total of 19 shark attacks in 2020, according to the Taronga Conservation Society.
