Maybe lifeguards should be running a drone periodically to look for sharks all the time swimmers or surfers are out in the water. They could observe better using a drone than using binoculars from a tower in the beach.

Tries to fly the drone even lower: Drone; nah, I'm good up here

"Dont be alone" I'd be sitting in the local coffee shop and still be wondering if I'm far enough away😬

Well done young man! The size difference between the surfers and the shark is mind boggling.

"I'm sorry I severed your femoral artery I thought you were a seal". Regretfully yours, Shark

Makes you wonder how many times in life we have near death experiences and never even realize it?

Shark seemed to be curious rather than aggressive.

Jesus Christ that shark looks gigantic from that angle.

That is a solid white... that thing is built like a tank

Holy hell that is an enormous Great White. I’m glad everyone got in safely.

That paddle skier is a legend as he paddled towards it after he saw the shark turn towards the surfer who hadn’t seen it. Respect. 🤜🏼🤜🏼

This is more intense than people think, this footage is incredible. That's a big shark to get that close. They had no clue the grim reaper was right next to them.

BEAUTIFUL camera work and control. Perfectly captured the size of the animal in comparison to the surfers and kayak. Brilliant.

I started surfing 68 years ago and there is no wave worth losing your life over. I also hike, bicycle and enjoy outdoor photography. Drones can help keep surfing breaks safer. That's good.

The real scary part is that the shark was just few feet away and no one noticed

Man, the perspective that the drone offers is amazing. Nice work.

One day these drones are going to catch a gruesome attack

When your in the ocean...your on a dinner plate.

Shark: *sees surfers* Also shark: right what's all this then

Beautiful footage! If you guys want to see more, there's a guy who films a lot of sharks with his drone, and especially encounters with humans in California. He's doing a fantastic job educating people about shark behaviors. He's got beautiful footage too and his commentaries are amazing. His channel is TheMalibuArtist. From what I understand, the shark in this video seems relaxed and just investigating the surfers. He doesn't show any agressivity and decides to put some distance between himself and the humans after a short while. According to TheMalibuArtist, encounters like this one are much more common than we think, as most of the time people aren't aware that a shark is nearby.

Great White "oh look , colorful fishing lures" "which one do I want to try?"

Bruce “surfers are friends not food”

"... it shows you the sharks are always there." It also shows you that they almost never attack. The shark was simply checking out a potential food source. When it realized the surfers weren't seals or another natural prey, it showed no sign of aggression. We need to stop demonizing these animals as mindless killers.

First thing to do near a shark: Don't splash! When that surfer started panic paddling is when the situation became dangerous.

This probably means there are more sharks by surfers than we thought.

sharks can be safe and don't need to be killed by "Protecting" nets. Drones surveillance can help humans and sharks to live together safely. Awesome.

I would have nightmares for the rest of my life if I was one of those surfers and saw this footage later. That shark was massive!

Shark had it's lunch before hanging out with surfers:)

I think the scariest thing is that if they don't want to be seen, they won't be.

Kayaker saved that surfer in the blue's life. Shark was honed in on that guy. The shark changed direction when the kayak came in probably sensing it may be another shark or predator. That is the guy who is very very lucky to be alive.

From one of the guys in the water ". He cruised on past me, very relaxed. This isn’t abnormal here. Plett is a great white hotspot. Most surfs you have here in winter (sharky season) they will be around. It becomes the norm to see them at some point on pretty much every surf in this time, some very close, some not. We are aware of who we share the ocean with- and mostly all encounters are of the same nature as the drone footage. However, the media depictions of this interaction paint a different picture.

We all know Sharks usually don't attack people, but again ... They are predators and curious creatures and react by instinct so the possibility of a shark attacking a "meal" is always there..

Zachary's Dad's friend did a brave and honourable thing, paddling straight out there to help ... risked his own life. He wasn't to know what mood the shark was in our how things were going to pan out. Great footage showing how close a shark can be, with surfers close by unaware.

I just bought my mother in law a surfboard.

If a shark that big with that many "options" right next to it was actually "going after the surfers" we would be watching a bloodbath....

Shark : "Him ? Nah, too small. What about him ? Pfffff..."

All of 12 to 14 ft there. Thick bastard too. Made that surfer sitting on his board look small. great footage.

I wonder How they did not see the shark? I mean, the water was so clear, at some point you must see a great white swimming right at the bottom...

The shark's like "where are you going? I was going to make espresso".

Last time I checked it's the sharks territory. Just another day where a beautiful shark was enjoying his backyard.

Shark thinks to himself, "I hate dim sum for lunch, I can never make up my mind."

That thing is huge. Guy in kayak must have had a heart attack!

It is beautiful to view a shark in its natural habitat from this angle

Man.....that boy saved lives that day.....someone give him and his drone a Mercedes or a vault of gold....he deserves it....great spotting

It looked to me like the shark might well have taken a testing bite at some point. It was only that the surfers eventually moved quickly that avoided this.

Sharks tend to hunt animals on the surface by diving down and then swimming up very fast to strike at the animal, that's not the behaviour of this shark at all. It was just curious, like any animal might be. It's only when the paddler started splashing that the shark started moving towards them with any speed because splashing can indicate that an animal is injured or dying, and therefore potentially prey. Keep safe, try not to splash too much if you see a shark and don't move away too fast as you may trigger the chase reflex (just like dogs)

The surfers watching this rn be like 👁👄👁

that shark was nothing but curious

What do poeple expect? Its the ocean obviously theres gonna be a shark curious about the poeple swimming in his enviroment.

"That's a 20 footer. 25... 3 tons of him"

I've been watching a lot of these shark drone videos, and that one....is HUGE!!

This shark is very brave being so close to these dangerous creatures ❤

That thing is HUGE!! And those first 2 surfers 🏄‍♀️ freaking booked it like cannons!

Shark: "why are these surfers not moving?, lemme see" Surfer: "Shark!, SURF!" Other surfer: "small waves" Surfer: "I don't care, just GO!"

that shark was being so nice and friendly..... those humans were so lucky didnt get bite.....

Shark's like: "what a bunch of snobs, I'll go find me some other friends."

Was just curious about what the surfers were. Not hunting them. If it was, it would have definately gotten someone. What a gorgeous animal it is. Glad all were ok.

I grew up in South Africa and we often swam quite far out off shore in KZN. There were shark nets but that doesn't stop sharks getting close to shore. Anyway, I went to visit a friend in Aus and we swam off the Sawtell coast NSW, going out over a hundred metres at times to body surfer some nice big breakers. I shudder to think what might have been in the water with us....

The shark was just vibing.

Shark: why are the surfer's circling me???

Whats with the fear mongering music?

He was just curious wondering who's in his backyard

Shark: Dudes, why aren’t you surfing? You just missed a bunch of great waves!

Is there literally NOTHING ELSE to do in South Africa??? Like why do people surf in waters infested of sharks?? Maybe I am just a wuss... Apologies if I offend any surfers!

The music 🤦‍♀️ I mean seriously?!

It just proves the sharks are not dangerous, man-eating crazy killers. Thank God that nobody was in a black jumpsuit, then the shark might of thought that they were a seal. But this just tells me they're not mindless killing creatures.

Hahaha..way they started paddling away like a tom n jerry show..😂🤣🤣🤣

That last surfer missing the wave in would’ve been peaking hahaha

Lucky, someone was not hungry!

"Usually don't attack people?" Unless they missed breakfast.

He's super aware of surfers above him.

He swam right behind that surfer. Possible that kayaker caused it to hesitate just enough to stop an attack. It’s crazy when people think they know how a wild animal does or will act. If he’s hungry enough he’d been more risky and this instance could have turned out differently.

In CA, they are coming closer and closer to shore each year.

Wow man that's great footage, you can tell that he was very curious and possibly had the thought a few times to take a taste test.

I don't know how long those boards are in average length, but let's say they're 8' long. That white pointer would then be about 12-14 footer. It definitely looks like it has a lot of girth to it.

The more footage I see like this the more I think sharks are likely around people in the sea much more than we realise and are mostly mildly curious and not aggressive. So on the possibly very occasional times they attack people, why do they? This type of drone footage of sharks around people is so valuable to gain knowledge about shark presence and behaviour.

I spent about 15 holidays in a row at Plett. It's always been sharky. Since about 2019 when the ocras (Port and Starboard) arrived around Cape Town, most of our whites headed to Plett. They are beautiful, curious creatures. I think the video shows how careful they are. Not these mindless creatures. Trevor from Submerged Psychos would agree. Great capture and glad everyone was safe that day. It's their ocean. We roll the dice.

Hallo from Plettenberg Bay everyone! Everyone knows the sharks are always around. The water has been very clear the last couple of weeks so easier to spot them.

The last line spoken in this video should be ringing in every beach-goers head... "The shark's always there."

That guy in the kayak is a hero.

They can be so happy that he already had his breakfast.

Shark : "Are those seals?"

Three points I take from this amazing video: 1 - you can be surfing / swimming directly over a huge adult shark and never even realize (we really are ill suited to navigate the ocean) 2 - a great white shark becomes most dangerous when it knows it's in your blind spot... I feel somehow that shark knew when it entered that surfers blind spot, it's behavior changed ever so slightly and it was bold enough to come within a meter of the surfers dangling legs. As many here have commented, the paddle boarder may have de-escalated the situation by invading the sharks body space in an aggressive manner causing it to retreat and re-think its next move. 3 - The normal (non- hungry - non aggressive) great white must find surfers a perplexing prey item, as we can see because of our terrible ocean awareness surfers are usually non-reactive to the presence of a huge mature great white circling them... who knows exactly how the white shark interprets this non-reactive behavior? I guess it actually helps to avoid a lot of attacks because our lack of a typical preys reaction / fear / flight behavior. As I've heard proposed as a theory a lot of GW attacks on surfers (and kayakers) might instead be a territorial response telling us to get out of their hunting grounds... but then once blood is in the water I think all bets are off. On a final note I can't agree with people commenting that this proves the safe / pacifist nature of a typical shark. This video shows a very dangerous situation no matter how you interpret the sharks thoughts. A shark that large and mature, coming in that close to surfers has to be interpreted as heightened curiosity in investigating potential prey. When marine biologists say sharks are "curious" animals they mean that sharks are curious whether or not they can eat the item they are investigating, this is an apex predator and this is it's MO eating known prey and discovering new prey, a sharks curiosity in you is something to be very wary of, in a split second it could turn from casual slow circling (as we see here) to a bite, literally in the blink of an eye. As I said before, the moment where the shark is in the surfers blind spot and less than a meter from him is quite chilling, thinking what could have happened next (at 0:28)

shark: " I really hate these plastic wrappings around the crunchy white meat"

AWESOME footage! And just shows Great Whites aren't just crazy killers. They are beautiful and in their own territory. Well done!

Wow, looks so chilled. ITS HUGE!!

Difference between South African and Australian surfers when they see a shark is how fast they retreat. I just watched a video of a group of surfers in Australia who saw a the shark but were cool about it, even taking their time going back to shore. Is it because sharks, like dogs, can sense fear and would chase after people more in that state of mind?

Awesome job young man. Perhaps this is the way all beaches should be patrolled. Life guards could use an overshot view & be better able to get a warning to those in the water.

Amazing footage boy's. It's the one you don't see that gets you .

U see shark u get out of his house . You in his dam house

People talk about how much danger those surfers were in. If that shark was interested in eating any of them, it wouldn't be swimming around so slowly.

Love these videos of surfers in shark territory & then acting shocked there are sharks

Amazing footage. Well done

Amazing video Zach well done 👍🤗 way to represent our country and our amazing sharks.

You are lucky because the shark knows what is social distancing.

Great white

Those people are super lucky the shark wasn’t just a little bit more hungry or bye bye suffers.

Water was crystal clear how could they not know it was there?

nearly gets killed by a shark, only thing he thinks about are the views lol

Look how small the surf boards look compared