Hair-raising footage captured the moment a great white shark measuring some 16 feet in length gave a fisherman and his son the fright of their lives.
Craig Hudson was out fishing with his 10-year-old child off the coast of Busselton in Western Australia.
When the monster shark started to circle their boat, Craig started filming.
Craig could be heard saying: “I’m shaking right now boy, that thing is massive. Probably bigger than the boat, look at him.”
The shark’s fin could be spotted first, before it swam directly towards the boat and its whole body emerged just underneath the surface of the water.
Craig said: “Oh s***, alright we’re getting a bit close now.”
His son asked him questions about what the shark planned to do with them as he begged his father to move the boat on.
Already in the process of trying to get away from the huge predator, Craig said: “He’s probably about 16 foot… I can’t even keep the bloody camera still I’m shaking that much.”
The extremely close encounter has thoroughly spooked viewers since the video was shared online.
One YouTube user commented: “You’re gonna need a bigger boat…”
Another shared: “I would be swearing too if I was out that deep and there was a shark that big coming that close to the boat”.
Western Australia is well known for shark sightings, which are believed to be on the rise.
Just last month 17-year-old surfer Laetitia Brouwer died after a shark attacked her at Wylie Bay.
There have been 15 fatal shark attacks in the Australian state since 2000, with Laetitia’s death the third fatality in the area in less than a year.
Marc Payne – a seasoned abalone diver in Esperance – said the number of great white sharks in the area had grown.
He said: “I’ve had quite an increase in interactions with white sharks of around about 200 per cent in the past three decades.”
